Big Human on Campus
by Black Dragon6
Summary: Ranma gets booted out of Furinkan after dealing with Saffron, and ends up on the bus to a new school called Youkai Academy, meeting a rather timid guy named Tsukune on the way. At least this place can't be worse than Furinkan, right?
1. Prologue

"Whoa. Wait. Hold on. Slow down, here," Ranma said, almost stumbling over his words as he stared at the piece of paper in his hands. "Wh-What is this, exactly?"

The pigtailed boy was currently standing in front of the principal's desk at Furinkan, having finally returned to school after the battle at Jusendo to begin his next semester.

The entire ordeal at Phoenix Mountain had left him emotionally and physically drained, and honestly the last place Ranma had wanted to go after wrapping up that mess was back to Furinkan. Literally. He would have rather stayed in China surrounded by Amazons, Musk and Phoenix than return to the dreary, painful rut that described his scholastic and social life.

Fighting people who wanted to kill him he could deal with. Hell, by now he was so good at it that NOT having a weapon to his throat seemed unusual to him. But taking classes and doing homework and dealing with his non-combatant peers? Bleagh.

Of course, if the paper in front of him was any indication, none of that was going to be a problem anymore anyway.

"I's 'zactly as i's written, keiki!" Principal Kuno said, his usual manic grin in place as he leaned back in his chair. "From now on you not be gettin' in da Big Kahuna's way no mo'! You officially expelled from da school!"

_Boom!_ Ranma groaned as the door behind him promptly burst open without the benefit of anyone having actually used the knob. He just knew he was going to get blamed for that somehow.

"What do you mean expelled?" Ukyo demanded, unslinging her battle spatula as she separated from the crowd of eavesdroppers that had piled into the room. "There's no way you're expelling Ranma-honey!"

"Principal, don't you think that's going a little too far?" Akane asked nervously.

Hinako pouted. "If Mister Saotome is expelled, then I'll NEVER get to reform him! My delinquent-busting record is ruined!"

Tatewaki Kuno stood up behind Ranma and opened his mouth, but everyone was saved from his speech as the pigtailed boy negligently kicked him over everyone's head and down the hall.

Principal Kuno seemed unfazed by the interruption. "Now all yah be listenin'! Dis here troublemakin' keiki been missin' school left n' right, and even messed up da finals when dat Chinese keiki go bustin' troo da wall da udda day! Da Big Kahuna try everytin' ta get da Saotome in line! New haircuts, new teachahs, attackin' durin' school rallies, puttin' bombs in da lunches, da works! But dis da last straw! Dis semester, keiki not be causin' no trouble at Furinkan, ya!"

The students all sweatdropped at the idea that the principal's wanton violence and arbitrary rules were supposed to enforce discipline in the school. The only thing the principal had ever done that had arguably INCREASED order rather than destabilizing it was the appointment of Ninomiya Hinako as an English teacher, and it was commonly supposed that Hinako's occasional rampages were probably far more destructive than the individuals they suppressed.

As Ranma went back to staring at the expulsion notice intensely, Principal Kuno grinned and leaned forward, clasping his hands together on his desk. He knew that the Saotome boy wouldn't take this lying down, and had prepared several... countermeasures in advance. The original expulsion forms that officiated everything had been hidden in an armored safe floating on an island in the middle of the school pool. The island, however, was not nearly as solid as it seemed, and once someone landed on it...

Ranma shrugged. "Well, all right. I guess I'll be leaving, then."

And then there were the sea mines strewn about the island, the sword-wielding monkeys that he had populated the gym with, and the sharks with laser-wait, what?

Principal Kuno gaped along with everyone else as Ranma tossed the paper back onto his desk and then turned around, hands in his pockets.

"Wait! Ranma-honey! Are you seriously gonna let him do this to you?" Ukyo asked incredulously.

Ranma shrugged again. "Well, I don't really like it, but the moron actually has a point this time," he admitted. "I don't do great in school, I'm always missing school 'cause of something or other, and I really don't see it changing any time soon, so why bother?"

"But... But there has to be a way to reverse this!" Akane said, turning toward the rather shocked-looking principal. "Where are the original expulsion documents?"

Principal Kuno shook his head to clear it, his grin recovering. "Ah, da Big Kahuna hid dem real well, yah! In ordah to find dem, you gotta-"

"Akane," Ranma said suddenly, startling the girl, "it's not that I don't appreciate the concern, but let's not."

"What do you mean?" Ukyo asked, looking worried. "Ranma-honey, we can do this! You know how Principal Kuno works! He's probably set up some zany obstacle course for us to protect the documents. We've dealt with this before. As soon as we find the papers, this whole thing will blow over and he'll forget all about it."

Ranma looked uncomfortable as he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, well... that's the thing," he mumbled. "I... I don't really mind being expelled."

That brought a rather shocked blink to the assembled crowd.

"Well, actually, that's not quite right," Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Actually, it's more like... I don't want to have to put up with the principal's stupid stunts just so I can keep having to put up with the principal's stupid stunts."

There was another synchronized blink, although this one was a lot less shocked.

"I mean, when I think about it, there's not too much goin' on here that I'll miss," Ranma admitted, "and I wasn't really banking my future on a solid education in the first place, you know? I just don't see a point in fighting this when he's pretty much doing me a favor and actually has a half-decent reason for doing it."

Many of the students were deep in thought at this point, mulling over Ranma's words. When they thought about it, most admitted that Ranma easily had the hardest time of ANY student on campus by far, and not just because he had grown up completely separated from civilization at large. None of them would have considered expulsion a favor by any stretch, but when applied to Ranma it made a twisted sort of sense.

Two students, however, weren't running this thought process, their minds overwhelmed with sadness and fury.

Naturally, Akane and Ukyo were royally pissed that Ranma hadn't included a "present company excluded" clause when he said that there wasn't much at Furinkan that he'd miss.

"Oh, so you wouldn't miss me, huh?" Akane growled as she gripped her mallet.

"You jackass! School is practically the only time I get to spend with you!" Ukyo cried, winding up a whopper of a spatula strike.

"Wait! I didn't mean-" Ranma tried to retract his earlier statement, but it was far too late.

"IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE, GET LOST!!" the pair of fiancees screamed, smashing Ranma through the window and into the sky.

* * *

A few minutes later Ranma was dragging himself out of the crater in front of the Tendo Dojo, grateful that the girls had smashed him in a convenient direction, and upset at pretty much everything else.

"Geez, I didn't even do anything! What're they actin' like this for?" He growled to himself as he walked through the front door. "Especially Akane! I mean, I LIVE with her! What, is it too much that I don't spend every waking minute by her side? Hell, she's seen what I have to put up with at school! If she really cared, she'd be glad I'm not goin' anymore!"

Ranma had exactly two seconds to reflect upon the fact that it was probably a really bad idea to mutter current events to himself while walking through the Tendo household before his folly resulted in the expected ambush.

"Ranma! What's this I hear about you not going to school anymore?" Soun demanded, practically leaping out of the living room to confront him.

Genma took Ranma's flank, leaping out behind the boy with a condescending expression on his face. "What are you talking about, boy? Don't tell me you're quitting! I didn't raise you to give up so easily!"

Ranma's expression soured even further as he turned toward his father. "No, but you DID raise me to be a 'delinquent,' apparently, and the principal was raised to be a lunatic. So as of today I'm expelled for missing so many classes and stuff. Nothing I can do."

"This is absolutely unacceptable!" Soun said angrily, crossing his arms over his chest. "Who will protect Akane during the day? And what will you do if Akane's not with you? No, expulsion is out of the question!"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. It figured that the Tendo patriarch was only concerned with how this might affect Akane when HE was the one being punished for what was barely his fault. "Get real. Half the school would fight to protect Akane if anyone attacked her there. Heck, she'll probably be in less trouble without me around anyway."

"And what about you, boy?" Genma growled.

"What about me? I'll find somethin' else to do during the day," Ranma said, shrugging off the older men's glares. "I'll just train more, or maybe I'll get a part-time job and actually earn my keep around here. Without school tyin' me down, I've got all kinds of options."

Honestly, now that he was actually away from Furinkan and the people he was leaving behind, he was even more certain that he'd never want to return. There was so much of his day that Furinkan stole from him, and it usually replaced otherwise productive hours with undiluted misery.

"I knew it!" Soun roared suddenly, almost knocking over the pigtailed boy. "You're going to abandon my Akane and go philandering about with those Amazons!"

Ranma clenched his teeth, his expression starting to heat up. "It wouldn't be my first choice, but it's starting to sound better and better the longer you talk."

Soun blinked at that, taking a step back. It was common for Ranma to respond to Genma's rants and accusations with anger and physical violence, but this sort of vehemence was rather unusual. Ranma tended to acquiesce quickly to the various Tendos, and Soun found himself struggling to think of something to say as a few tendrils of fear started taking apart his backbone.

"Now see here, Ranma!" the patriarch said firmly, his expression turning from angry to grim, "I cannot allow this sort of behavior in my home!"

"What behavior?" Ranma demanded, throwing his arms up in the air. "You mean constantly running around to save your daughter so often that the school gets fed up with me? Is that the behavior you want to stop? This ISN'T my fault!"

"If you weren't so lazy, you could've passed their tests easily!" Genma growled, backing up his buddy. "You think that being a good martial artist is all there is to life? What's the point of being good at fighting if you're dumber than dirt?"

_WHAM!_ The haymaker that relieved Genma of consciousness blurred as it slammed into his jaw, disguising two hundred or so punches as a single brutal attack.

"I don't wanna hear that from **you**," Ranma growled, his eyebrow twitching.

Soun gulped deeply at seeing his backup fall comatose, wondering what to do now. Ranma was being rational rather than pliable, and this presented a great many problems. Obviously if he didn't say the right thing now, then the boy would make a decision about his future, and as a rule he and Genma did everything in their power to prevent that from happening.

Luckily, he was saved from having to salvage the disastrous encounter as a pair of women emerged from the next room.

"Oh, Ranma, welcome home!" Kasumi said, smiling brilliantly as always. She didn't bother asking what he was doing home so early, and Ranma knew why; she had emerged from the living room where the two men had come from, and had likely heard everything they had.

The second woman to emerge from the room had Ranma wincing, afraid of the conversation to come.

"Son, may I speak to you in private, please?" Nodoka asked calmly, her honor blade held against her shoulder as usual.

Ranma hung his head forlornly as he followed his mother upstairs. Dealing with his father was easy, especially when the man insisted on turning to hypocrisy to get his point across, but his mother was a different beast altogether. If she insisted that he go back to school and get re-admitted, he wasn't sure that he could refuse her. A few minutes later he was seated on the floor facing Nodoka, his expression pensive as his mother studied his face.

"So Ranma, I want to know," Nodoka said bluntly, "do you want to go to school?"

"No," Ranma said immediately. Only a slight eye twitch revealed his immediate regret in saying that. "Er... well... I don't want to go back to Furinkan, at least."

"I see..." Nodoka mumbled. "Is there any particular reason why?"

"Lots of 'em," Ranma said frankly. "And most of 'em have got names. Kuno, the other Kuno, Miss Hinako, Nabiki, Akane-"

He was interrupted by his mother's voice as she frowned. "Why wouldn't you want to go to school with your fiancee?"

Ranma grimaced, realizing he'd stuck his foot in his mouth again. He hadn't really meant to say Akane's name, but as he was scrolling through the list of people who created problems for him at school, the tomboy easily made his top three.

"It's not like I hate bein' with her, but it's just such a pain. I can barely talk to another girl without her gettin' angry, and I can't spend time with her without a bunch of other people gettin' angry. It's lose-lose, ya know? And she's hell on my reputation."

Nodoka raised an eyebrow, thinking it inconceivable that her son could have anything but the most sterling and heroic repute... until a thought crossed her mind. "I see. Not all of your peers appreciate your manly ways, do they?"

Ranma winced. That was a bizarre way to put it, but in a twisted sort of way his mother had hit the nail on the head. "Yeah, pretty much. Every time Akane gets jealous, she rants to her girlfriends about what a lecherous jerk I am, and then a new wave of rumors starts up. To hear my classmates tell it, I have somewhere around nine fiancees and I've knocked half of 'em up."

Nodoka blinked. "Of course, that's not true."

Ranma snorted as he turned to the side. "Of course not."

He missed Nodoka's disappointed expression, but turned back to his mother when she cleared her throat.

"Ranma, while I understand that you don't like Furinkan, you must know that being expelled from school is not very manly." She hesitated. "Although I suppose you can be expelled for very manly reasons. In this case, I believe you acted as best you could given the circumstances, and frankly there are plenty of things you can do to make up for this incident."

Ranma sighed in relief, but cautiously waited for her to continue.

"You can, as you mentioned, increase your martial arts training, get a job, or spend more time with your other fiancees. Any one of these would be very manly, indeed," she said pleasantly, looking happy.

Ranma started to brighten, thinking that maybe he'd take Soun's unintended suggestion and start working at the Cat Cafe again. That way he would accomplish all three of Nodoka's options at once. Even if being a girl for so long had been hell, his employment under Cologne was otherwise some of the best few weeks he'd had since he'd come to Nerima, and he didn't mind the thought of working there as a man one bit.

"Or... you can even go back to school!"

Ranma's imagined happiness shattered to pieces all around him. "What."

"As it so happens, something arrived in the mail for you today," Nodoka said brightly, reaching into the folds of her kimono and withdrawing some sort of flyer and handing it to her son.

"Wha? What's this?" Ranma asked skeptically, looking over the piece of paper. It was addressed, ominously enough, to "Destroyer of Saffron," and the front of it was covered with advertisements for some place known as "Youkai Academy". He had to admit that it looked extremely suspicious, especially as the promotions included words like "secluded," "dark," and "beyond the prying eyes of the mortal world." It also boasted some very odd promises at the bottom, claiming that its curriculum taught students to "cope with the struggles and temptations of living in the human world."

Being utterly confused by the front, Ranma flipped it over, and then he raised an eyebrow as he found a message on the back that seemed to have been written specifically for him.

**To the destroyer of the Phoenix,** it read, instantly puffing up Ranma's pride, **We have been informed of recent events that have led to the permanent and unfortunate wide-scale remodeling of much of the Bayankala mountain range in mainland, China, as well as the extent of your personal participation.** Ranma winced, his pride deflating slightly. It was odd to hear his fight referred to like that. **It has been decided that you are a definite threat to human civilization, and as a result have been given the chance to undergo formal rehabilitation at Youkai Academy. In order to facilitate your education with us, you have been offered a full scholarship, including room and board should you decide to join this coming semester.**

Ranma's face darkened as he read the next line.

**Yours truly, Mysterious Benefactor (???)**

It annoyed him considerably that the writer of the letter had included such an obvious hint that his intentions weren't entirely good-natured, but the next line had him tossing away the flyer with a snort.

**P.S. We totally know where you live.**

"Yeah, right. Scholarship or no, that just sounds like more trouble inviting me to walk into it. Nothin' doin'," Ranma declared, leaning back onto his hands. Some of it sounded intriguing, and the thought of suddenly taking a vacation from his life in Nerima for completely plausible and honorable reasons certainly appealed to him, but his experience with such matters told him to stay away.

Nodoka nodded. "I see. Very well, I respect your decision Ranma. There is a considerable stigma attached to those who do not complete high school, but you have acquitted yourself well and it is not entirely necessary. Why, your father also dropped out of school when he was about your age, although I believe he did so voluntarily."

Nodoka stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, smiling as she reminisced about her past.

It was for that reason that she was rather surprised when Ranma suddenly leaned in and hugged her.

"Oh! Ranma... uh..." now that she was looking at her son again, she noticed that he was wearing his traveling backpack as he gave her a gentle, loving squeeze.

"Well, it's gonna be a long semester, so I guess I'll see ya later," Ranma said as he disengaged from the stunned woman, standing up. "Tell Pops that I'm off getting educated, unlike HIM. Oh, I guess you should probably say something to all the girls too, since I don't really have time to say goodbye. Love ya Mom! Bye!"

As Nodoka sat in place blinking rapidly, Ranma stepped out of the room, grimacing as he noted the directions given on the front of the school flyer. "Not much time to catch that bus..."

End Prologue 


	2. A Bad Start

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: I'm going to try and do that thing again. You know, the thing. Where I use other people's characters to create a story rather than just sticking in my own. What's that called again?  
Oh, right! FANFICTION!

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 1  
A Bad Start

* * *

"Huh. This is kinda weird," Ranma mumbled to himself as he stared out of the windows of the bus he was on, watching as the vehicle finally left the tunnel it had entered. Immediately, Ranma had noticed that the land on this side of the tunnel was parched and dead, whereas the land on the other side had been perfectly fine. Crows populated the dead and withered trees in absurd numbers, and the very air seemed choked and dark.

In the seat across from him, Tsukune Aono gaped at the landscape as he clutched the duffle bag in his lap, quite alarmed at the change. "What the heck? What happened out there? Where are we?"

Ranma Saotome was an eighteen year old boy with black hair in a curved pigtail wearing red and black Chinese silks whose build practically defined "athletic". By contrast, Tsukune Aono practically defined the term "average". His looks were neither compelling nor unattractive, and he bore absolutely no distinguishing features. In fact, most would say that the most distinguishing thing about him was how unremarkable he looked compared to almost anyone else. His short black hair was clumsily combed into a style that was neither unfashionable nor trendy, and his brown eyes seemed plain and unassuming. His outfit was a normal school uniform, if a nicely pressed one.

Neither of the boys spoke to each other, though each had considered making some small talk on their way out of Tokyo to their new school. They had been surprised to find themselves the only passengers on the vehicle, since they had assumed there would be a rush of students trying to get on what was apparently the last bus to school this semester.

Ultimately, however, Tsukune had shied away from approaching or speaking to the other boy, and Ranma had settled on thinking quietly to himself, now that he finally had time to think.

The first thing that Ranma's mind settled on was a bitter complaint that this bus was the last one taking him to Youkai Academy. There was a certain relief with simply dashing out of Nerima without telling anyone who might have wanted to stop him, but given that he was probably going to be returning in a few months for break, he knew that there were going to be consequences for his haste. Really, between his mother and the mysterious letter he had received, he had a perfect reason to leave Nerima, and he could have at LEAST said his goodbyes to the people who wouldn't physically try to restrain him.

Across the bus, Tsukune groaned as he stared out at the creepy landscape all around him. He knew that flyer that his parents found was suspicious, but he hadn't expected things to be THIS bad when he'd finally been shipped off to school. Still, it wasn't like he had many options, what with every school he'd actually applied to rejecting him.

"Heh heh heh heh..."

Both boys turned from their thoughts toward the head of the bus where the driver, an old man with a small mustache and a pipe in his lips, had started chuckling darkly.

"Tsukune Aono," he intoned mirthfully, causing the boy in question to stiffen, "fifteen years old. Grades: straight C's. Special skills: none. A gleaming tribute to the ordinary in a sea of the unremarkable." He hadn't turned around to say any of this, keeping his eyes on the road like any sensible driver.

Tsukune looked fairly freaked out by the surprise appraisal, but Ranma straightened, assuming that he was next.

"Ranma Saotome. Eighteen years old. Grades... not applicable. Special skills: martial arts, tea ceremony, thievery, cosplay, dining, dining, ballroom dancing... etcetera. A fighter of the highest caliber, an inhuman prodigy of the martial arts."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. "Whaddya mean 'not applicable'? They weren't THAT bad, even if I was expelled!"

Tsukune stared at the other boy in awe, though he was far too impressed by the list of skills to be bothered by the outburst that followed it.

"We're almost to Youkai Academy now," the driver cackled, turning slightly to reveal faintly glowing eyes to his passengers. "I hope you have your affairs in order, boys. And do try not to aggravate the locals; that would be a GRAVE mistake!"

Tsukune gulped. "Uh, th-they're not that bad... are they?"

"Oh, I'm DEAD serious," the driver hissed, still grinning around his pipe.

Ranma was silent for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed. "Hey, aren't you that old man from the cave?"

The driver quickly jerked he head to side, returning his gaze firmly to the road. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said quickly.

"Yeah, you're that old creep who kept making the lousy death puns and rented out those useless boats in that Cave of Lost Love place," Ranma said, looking annoyed.

"I'm afraid you're DREADFULLY mista-dammit!" The driver promptly slammed his forehead on the wheel in frustration, causing the horn to honk briefly before he lifted his head back up.

Ranma didn't say anything for a while after that, occasionally glancing out the window at the wasteland rushing by. "So, this is your day job?"

The driver grumbled a bit as he hunched over further. "It's a seasonal thing. I also give spooky fortunes and run a magic shop that keeps moving from place to place after my products screw over my customers... sometimes I entertain at birthdays."

Ranma whistled as Tsukune stared at the old man incredulously. "Wow. That plus the cave?"

"I get around," the driver mumbled, finally halting the bus with an abrupt application of the brakes. "We're here! Last stop: Youkai Academy! Watch your step! Taking a fall around here could be FATAL!"

Ranma blinked as he was about to step off of the bus. "Wait, that wasn't even a pun. You just-"

"If you want my 'A' material, try leaving a tip for once!" the driver snapped, his eyes glowering. "Now get off my bus!"

Ranma wasn't about to pay the ghoulish old man anything extra, so he hopped onto the ground and glanced at the surrounding landscape, Tsukune coming up behind him.

"What... What kind of place is this?" The shorter boy asked, staring at a sign that bore the name of the school. It was planted on what appeared to be a scarecrow with a jack o'lantern for a head, which was itself posted above a small pile of skulls, a few of which seemed to be human.

Ranma, for his part, stared out at the school, which appeared to be a massive western-style mansion with several smaller buildings clustered around it; probably the dorms. It was very dark, thanks mostly to the pall of dark clouds hanging over it and occasionally letting loose bolts of lightning behind the structure and generally giving the place a horrifying and forbidding visage.

He shuddered, hoping that it wouldn't start raining.

"S-So, I don't think I properly introduced myself, even if the driver mentioned my name. I'm Aono Tsukune," the younger boy said, bowing to Ranma.

"Oh, right. I'm Saotome Ranma," Ranma said back, bowing quickly. "We should get goin'. Classes start today, right?"

"Yeah, but..." Tsukune gulped. "Do you really think this place is a school?"

"Naw, looks like a haunted house," Ranma admitted, scratching the back of his head. "But hey, I don't see a reason why you can't teach in a haunted house, so whatever. I just hope the ghosts 'aint too much of a bother."

Tsukune gaped as he listened to his companion discuss the prospects of the undead so casually, and lifted his duffel bag to follow the martial artist.

Suddenly, Ranma halted, his eyes widening. 'Shampoo senses... tingling!' "Evade! Now!"

Sure enough, the _Cha-ching!_ of a bicycle bell sounded behind the two boys, and Ranma suddenly dove to the side of the path with the full measure of his speed and agility.

Tsukune, who had just seen his companion shout and then seemingly blur into nothingness, simply gaped as the pigtailed boy's warning slowly penetrated his thoughts.

_Crash!_ Ranma felt a bit guilty at the feelings of surprise and relief that came over him when Tsukune was run over by a bicycle rather than him. He had never been able to successfully avoid Shampoo's bike before, so he could only assume that the bicycle was being (rather poorly) ridden by someone else, and not his persistent Chinese suitor.

"Hey, you okay Tsukune?" He called out, stepping onto the path again.

Looking at the girl who had collapsed on top of his shorter companion, Ranma was vindicated; the girl wasn't as well-developed as Shampoo, though he had to admit she came close. Her hair was a long, dark pink, and was really cute.

There was also something... off about her, Ranma noticed almost immediately. Her aura was all wrong, and seemed to be centered around the heavy rosario cross that was hung around her neck, which was radiating far more ki energy than she was. Really bizarre, but not really important, he decided.

Tsukune hadn't answered Ranma's question, because he was quite thoroughly distracted with the beautiful creature that had suddenly just collapsed into his lap. He distantly heard Ranma's question, and thought he heard the girl mumble something about anemia, but it was very difficult for him to focus on anything other than the incredible visage in front of him.

'Cute... so cute!' was the only thing that he could think of... until a blood vessel in his nose popped, and he threw his head back. 'Ack! Tissue! Need... tissue!'

Ranma sweatdropped as he watched the scene play out before him, deciding to stay out of it. Neither of the younger kids seemed injured from the bicycle crash, and Tsukune seemed to be having a Hibiki moment with the girl that had fallen on him. She started dabbing at the blood coming from Tsukune's nose with a handkerchief, and then she started sniffing the handkerchief, for some reason.

"Your blood... I can smell it..." the girl said softly, seeming to fall into a daze as she crawled closer to Tsukune.

Ranma raised an eyebrow at the comment and watched, fairly stunned, as the strange girl drew close enough to Tsukune that their lips were only centimeters apart.

"I'm sorry, but..." the girl came even closer, and Tsukune's heart thumped almost painfully as he felt her breath spread across his lips.

"... I'm a vampire," the girl finally said, her mouth darting for Tsukune's neck and biting onto him.

Tsukune froze completely as pain surged through him, and his eyebrow twitched as the girl on top of him sucked out a good mouthful of blood. "Wh-Wh-What?"

_Crack!_

A sharp noise behind the pair reminded both of them that they weren't alone, and the girl, who was apparently a vampire, backed away from Tsukune while blushing. "I'm so sorry! I couldn't help myself, really!"

Then she turned around, looking up at the taller boy that was glaring at her with his hands behind his back. She couldn't see whatever it was that had made that cracking noise, though. "I'm sorry about that; I didn't mean to startle either of you."

"Did you just suck Tsukune's blood?" Ranma asked, his eyes hard.

The girl blushed deeper. "Y-Yes, but not much! He'll be fine!"

Ranma idly glanced over at his companion, who was running about frantically as blood spurted from the wound in his neck. "Uh huh..."

The girl smiled brightly at him. "My name is Akashiya Moka! What's your... uh..." She finally noticed that several bits of wood shavings and pieces were falling to the ground behind the pigtailed boy, accompanied by a constant scraping sound. "What are you doing?"

"Nothin'," Ranma answered promptly, continuing to shave the end of the branch he'd broken off into a point using a sharp rock. He'd never fought a vampire before, but he'd seen a few shows about it thanks to Hiroshi, and if that Buffy chick could pull it off then so could he.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow..." Tsukune panted as he clamped a hand over his neck, quite alarmed and generally upset at the turn of events.

"Are you okay? I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to do that," Moka said, turning back to her "victim". "Well, I mean, I DID mean to do that, but I couldn't resist! I hope it didn't hurt too much!"

"Wh-What, this? Th-This is nothing!" Tsukune said reflexively, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Moka looked relieved at the admission, and Ranma frowned before snapping his hand to one side.

_Thock!_

Moka turned around at the noise and then blinked when she saw a two-foot long wooden stake embedded firmly in the trunk of a tree to the side of the road. She glanced over at Ranma, then back to the tree, which was still shaking slightly from a recent impact. Then she looked at Ranma again.

"What?" He asked innocently.

Turning away uncertainly, Moka addressed Tsukune again. "I'm Akashiya Moka! What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Aono Tsukune," Tsukune said somewhat nervously, surprised and a little ashamed that he had gotten to second base with a girl who didn't even know his name. 'Wait, does that count as second base? Are there special rules for biting?'

After a few seconds, he noticed Moka glancing uncomfortably at Ranma. "Oh, sorry. This is Saotome Ranma. Saotome, this is Akashiya Moka."

"Hi," Ranma said casually, his expression not quite reaching a smile as he stepped up next to Tsukune. "Not to rush you guys, but we're kind of running late as it is. Let's hurry up, eh?" Without asking permission, he took up Moka's bike and hoisted it up easily so that he was carrying it over his shoulder.

Moka looked a bit surprised at the feat, but recovered quickly, moving to keep pace with the boys.

"So, uhm..." she blushed slightly as the others glanced at her, and her eyes locked with Tsukune. "Your blood is very delicious, by the way."

Ranma desperately fought off a disparaging comment as Tsukune's eyes twitched.

"Is... that so?" The latter said awkwardly.

"Do you... not like vampires?" Moka asked timidly.

"Are you kidding?" Tsukune said, laughing almost hysterically, "I love vampires!" He didn't really know why he said that, but Moka's face brightened instantly at the admission, and he suddenly found it hard to regret.

"That's great! Then we can be friends!" Smiling brilliantly, Moka turned her head up slightly to address Ranma. "Do you like vampires, Ranma?"

"Nah," the pigtailed boy said immediately.

The atmosphere promptly seemed to chill several degrees, and Moka's face darkened. "Ah... oh... I see..."

Tsukune gulped at the sudden tension, and immediately moved to dispel it. "Well, come on, now! How many vampires have you actually known, Ranma?"

"None, really," Ranma admitted, shrugging his shoulders. He could admit that it wasn't like him to be so cold toward someone he'd just met, but Moka's biting into Tsukune had agitated his protective instincts, strange as it was for him to be protecting another man.

Well, okay, on top of that, the "vampire" thing didn't help one bit, it was true. Ranma had not had ANY good experiences with the undead, and he was still getting an uncomfortable vibe from this girl.

Tsukune laughed nervously, feeling that Ranma's admission hadn't really changed the tension in the air. "I'm sure that once we all get to know each other we'll be great friends! No problem at all!"

"Yeah... I'm sure you're right," Moka said uncertainly. "Anyway, I have to take off now. I'll see you after the commencement ceremony, all right Tsukune?"

Tsukune scratched the back of his head as Ranma put Moka's bike down wordlessly. "Oh, sure! I'll see you then. Bye!"

* * *

Ranma felt mildly cheated when he entered the main hall of Youkai Academy, seeing that it looked a lot less spooky on the inside than the outside. Although it seemed like a mansion externally, now that he and Tsukune had entered after the commencement it looked a lot more like a school, complete with bulletin boards and groups of students milling about.

There wasn't much Ranma had to say about the commencement ceremony, because he had spent the entire time engrossed in checking out the battle auras of everyone around him. It amazed him once he realized it, but it seemed that nearly everyone had a really strange aura around here. Not strange in the same way Moka's was, but in all sorts of ways. There were really big ones, abnormally small ones, people who didn't seem to have ki at all, and a few who seemed to constantly bleed energy like miniature suns.

Tsukune didn't have much to say about the commencement ceremony either, because he had spent most of it in a pleasant daze. 'I touched Moka's leg,' he thought dreamily. 'It was so soft...'

The younger boy sighed. "She sure was cute, huh? Pretty hard to believe that story about her being a vampire."

Ranma gave him an odd glance. "Tsukune, she BIT you. Hard."

"I don't think she meant anything by it," Tsukune insisted. "And besides, I'm fine now. You don't really think she was trying to hurt me, do you?"

Ranma frowned, scratching his head underneath his pigtail. "Naw, I guess not. Sure didn't seem like the type to hurt anyone." Then his eyes narrowed. "But I tend not to trust people who suck blood on principle."

Tsukune winced at that. When Ranma put it that way, his reaction to Moka earlier seemed a lot more reasonable. When Ranma said up-front that he didn't like vampires, it sounded wrong, like some kind of twisted racism. The blood-sucking thing, though...

"Well, let's just forget about it for now," Tsukune said, heading for his classroom. "You should probably find your own class, Ranma."

Ranma frowned, and then pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "Uh... this is my class."

Tsukune blinked. "What? But this is my homeroom. That would mean..."

The pigtailed boy stared down at Tsukune, recalling what the driver had said about the boy's age.

Then his eyebrow twitched as he came to a realization. "God DAMN it! They made me a freshman again!"

* * *

A few moments later saw Tsukune seated in his new classroom, Ranma having taken the seat next to him as he alternately grumbled irritably or cast nervous glances at the homeroom teacher.

The teacher, a rather cute, petite woman with a bright smile and a pair of fashionable glasses on her face, introduced herself as Nekonome Shizuka as she prepared to start class.

Ranma flinched at the name. 'Nekonome? Naw, it's a coincidence. Total coincidence. I mean, she hardly even looks like a cat.' The teacher did have a few tufts of her brown hair that came together to look suspiciously like cat ears, but he did his best to brush it off.

"All right, everyone, let's get started!" Shizuka said brightly. "As an introduction, allow me to reiterate the school's function and curriculum!" She wrote out the kanji for "Youkai" on the board, and then turned her grinning face toward her class. "Youkai... is a school for **monsters**!"

Tsukune's face darkened instantly. Ranma blinked.

"Like it or not, humans pretty much rule the world nowadays," the feline teacher said, drawing a crude picture of the earth on the chalkboard and adding some stick-figure people on top. "In order for us monsters to survive in the human world, we have to learn how to coexist peacefully with humans! That's Youkai Academy's mission!"

'That's ridiculous! Is this some sort of joke? What's happening?' Tsukune thought, glancing left and right as he panicked.

'That explains EVERYTHING,' Ranma thought to himself, nodding. 'Well, everything other than why I'm here, actually.'

"Which brings us to rule number one!" Shizuka cheered. "You must maintain your human form at ALL TIMES! Don't let any of your classmates know your true form! This is important practice for disguising yourself in the human world!"

Ranma scratched his head and was about to raise his hand when another student suddenly piped up.

"Why don't we just EAT all the humans?" The man who said this looked a bit too old to be a freshman, but now that Ranma knew that his classmates were simply in disguise, it didn't seem like a big deal. He had mussy blond hair and an arrogant sneer that seemed to be permanently attached to his mouth along with the silver piercing on his lower lip.

"I'll take the cute girls, myself," he followed up, his lip curling.

"No, no, we can't do that! Youkai exists to teach **peaceful** coexistence!" Shizuka chided. "Besides, you don't have to worry about running into any humans here. All the students and faculty are monsters in disguise, just like you."

"Well, not quite all of 'em," Ranma said suddenly, speaking up. "I'm human, so what's the deal? Why'd I get sent to a place like this?"

Tsukune, who had been panicking at the thought of all his classmates being monsters, turned to gape at the pigtailed boy along with most of the class. 'Did he really just say that out loud? What is he thinking? He could get hurt!'

Ranma glanced around, noticing all of the stunned stares. Which made sense, he supposed, since he wasn't supposed to be here. He guessed Tsukune wasn't either, although he couldn't be sure that his companion wasn't just an unusually ordinary type of monster or something.

"You're... human?" Shizuka asked, her hair-ear twitching. She had been about to follow up her last assertion with something along the lines of "No human has ever seen Youkai Academy... and lived!" but now that there seemed to be an actual human in her class by accident, she didn't know what to do. She didn't really want to see anybody killed, but from the way some of the stunned stares were shifting into hateful glares, she guessed that the situation was out of her paws. Er, hands.

"So... you're a human, huh?" Said the boy with the piercings, slowly pushing himself up from his desk. "And you just come right out and admit it? Heh. Heh heh heh!"

Several of the other students looked like they were going to get up too, but winced and stayed seated once the blond boy started chuckling. Ranma simply looked up curiously as the taller student walked up to his desk.

"You know, it really is a wonder your kind owns the world," the boy said, a feral grin on his face.

Ranma just tapped his pen on his desk rhythmically, looking mildly annoyed at the encounter.

"Especially when you're so bad at SURVIVAL!" He puncuated the last word by thrusting his hand at Ranma's head, the skin stretching and swelling to reveal huge, hard fingers tipped with pointed claws.

Ranma, for his part, leaned back sharply in his chair, letting the attack pass in front of him as he balanced his chair on its back two legs.

Then he brought up his pen, catching the other student's wrist with the cap before snapping the implement upward.

_WHAM! CRASH!_ The other students' eyes widened as Ranma's attacker was sent flying into, and then through, the ceiling above, and Tsukune covered his head as several small pieces of debris fell down on top of him.

"Actually," Ranma finally said, flipping his pen around in his fingers as he let his chair fall back into place, "I'm pretty good at survival." His statement was accompanied by a smug grin. Happousai's kinetic re-direction technique wasn't much use to him in a real battle, but was great for casually impressing people who might have thought that he was some sort of weakling.

There was another stunned silence as the other students stared at Ranma while occasionally glancing at the hole in the ceiling.

Finally, one of the students seated behind Ranma snorted. "Oh, right! Some 'human' we got here! Ha! That was great!"

Ranma blinked. "Huh?"

Shizuka smiled brightly. "Ah, I see! Everyone, notice that Mister Saotome's disguise was near perfect! He even defended himself without changing forms or using an obvious monstrous ability! Even I was fooled into thinking he might have actually been human!"

"But... no. I really am," Ranma insisted awkwardly, noticing that most of the class was smiling at him. "I'm really human. Seriously."

"Of course you are!" the teacher said, winking. "And so are the rest of us, right?"

"No, no, I'm not kidding around," Ranma insisted, not noticing as Moka suddenly entered the classroom, "I'm one-hundred percent, completely human!"

Moka immediately froze in the middle of her greeting and apology for being late.

Tsukune, who had noticed her right away, blinked as the vampiress seemed to pale slightly, looking extremely upset.

"Okay, okay, we understand," Shizuka said to Ranma, clearly not understanding at all. "That's fine, but we have to get to work, okay?" Then she turned toward Moka. "Hello, are you late?"

Moka promptly snapped out of her daze, and then bowed respectfully to the teacher. "Yes, sorry about that. I'm Akashiya Moka, reporting for homeroom."

"Okay! You can take that seat over there, next to Mister Aono!" the unnaturally feline teacher said, pointing to the desk next to Tsukune.

_Whud!_ Almost immediately after she said this, the body of the blond boy Ranma had sent flying tumbled back down through the hole in the ceiling, causing another brief shower of dust and debris before he landed painfully on top of the empty desk.

Tsukune flinched away at the impact, and then stood up hesitantly. "Uh... here, I'll help you clear it," he offered, his brain pretty much running on autopilot at this point.

"Oh! Thank you so much, Tsukune! I'm so glad we're in the same class after all!" Moka said cheerfully, pointedly ignoring Ranma as she walked up to her new desk.

For his part, the pigtailed boy glanced about irritably as most of the guys in class leered at the newest student and whispered loudly about how cute she was.

'I can't believe these idiots actually think I'm some kind of monster,' he grumbled mentally. 'Well, I'll fix that later. Then again, I'm kinda wondering why I'm even here.'

He scratched his head as he watched the body of that punk that had attacked him roll onto the floor. 'A school for monsters, huh? Sounds interesting, but it's not like I need lessons in how to survive around humans. Maybe I should get out of here. There has to be some other school that'd take me...'

* * *

'This... This feels like a dream,' Tsukune thought, his mind a soft, gentle haze as Moka walked with him through the school halls with her arm entwined in his. 'Aw, so what if this is a monster school? Who's afraid of monsters, anyway?'

"Wow, isn't this hall beautiful? This place is great!" Moka said, looking at the archaic staircase and great bronze statues that decorated the main hall.

Behind the pair, several of the male students began whispering and gaping as Moka passed by.

"I've never seen anyone so hot!"

"Do you think it's just a really good human form?"

"Who cares! I want her!"

"Who's that guy she's with?"

"Looks like a loser to me."

"Whatever. If he gets in the way he's toast!"

Tsukune shuddered as a chill crept down his back, and Moka gave him a questioning look.

"Tsukune? Is something wrong?"

He gave her a nervous smile. "No, not really. I just got a little cold all of a sudden, that's all."

"That reaction's pretty normal when guys are compared to me," a third voice said suddenly, causing the pair to turn around.

Standing over them was the boy that Ranma had taken out earlier, looking down at Moka with a feral grin.

All things considered, he didn't look that bad off, although he had a few band-aids over one side of his face and Tsukune could see some bandage wrappings peeking out from the sleeve of the arm that had struck at the martial artist.

"The name's Komiya Saizo, beautiful," Saizo said, looming over Moka. "I'm sorry I... missed your introduction to the class, but that little punk with the pigtail cold-cocked me back there."

"Uh... h-hi. I'm Moka," the vampiress said uncertainly.

"Hey, is that Saizo?" One of the other students whispered, peeking around a corner from where he had been watching the pink-haired vampire.

"I think it is! I heard that he's always messing with girls. **Human** girls! He caused so much trouble that he ended up here!"

"Man, I would NOT want to be in that little punk's shoes right now."

Ranma, who had just emerged from the bathroom behind the group of voyeurs, stopped and blinked before moving to join them to see what was happening.

"Nice to meet ya, babe," Saizo said smoothly, his gaze finally falling on her companion. "Got a question, though. Why's a hottie like you hangin' out with trash like THIS?" At the last word, he grabbed a surprised Tsukune up by the collar and hefted him into the air. "Sheesh. I'm scraped gunk off my shoes better looking than this piece of... eh?"

Saizo stopped as he felt something tap his shoulder, and with an irritated snort he looked behind him.

Ranma glared evenly at the taller boy, his arms crossed over his chest. "You just run around LOOKING for trouble, don't you?"

Ignoring Saizo's suddenly enraged expression, Ranma's eyes shifted to Tsukune. "Hey Tsukune, you all right?"

"B-B-Been b-better," the hapless human whimpered, still held in the air.

Saizo growled and promptly grabbed Ranma by the front of his shirt with his free hand before hauling him up to an altitude equal to Tsukune. He was further enraged when Ranma didn't look at all put out by the action, simply staring at him coldly. "You caught me by surprise before by lying about your being human, but-"

"I wasn't lying!" Ranma snapped suddenly. "I'm a human! Get over it!" There were a few alarmed whispers from the onlookers after this statement, but for the most part the other students watched the scene in a tense silence.

Saizo snorted. "Yeah, right! No human could pull that little stunt back there in the classroom!" His furious snarl shifted into a grin. "You know what humans CAN do? They can scream real good as I take their arms and rip 'em from their sockets! They can cry pathetically as I cut 'em open with my claws! They can beg for mercy as I slowly crush them against the ground!"

His grin got even bigger, and Tsukune gulped. "And that's just the guys. Now female humans, they have... other talents."

Ranma's gaze was icy as he stared up at the bigger student. "You know what else humans can do? This."

Without further warning, he grabbed hold of the arm grasping his shirt at the same time he planted his feet against Saizo's chest for extra leverage.

_CRACK!_ The surrounding students stared bug-eyed as Ranma twisted Saizo's forearm a full one hundred and eighty degrees, snapping his forearm bones like twigs and eliciting an expression of shocked agony from the heavily pierced monster.

Needless to say, Saizo's grip slackened instantly, and Tsukune fell into a heap next to Moka as Ranma landed lightly on his feet.

The pigtailed man didn't bother giving Saizo a chance to reply or counter, and smashed a foot into the boy's stomach to double him over before striking him with a hammer punch to the back of the head that sent the lecherous monster onto the floor.

Ranma debated stomping on Saizo's head for good measure, but relented instead, glaring down at the twitching figure beneath him. Honestly, the initial surge of rage that had entered him as he'd thought of Saizo tearing innocent people apart had implored him to kill the other student outright, but he had struggled to retain control of his emotions.

After all, he didn't really know much about Saizo, and he was very familiar with people who had more bark than bite. Saizo could have just been talking tough, and he wasn't willing to end someone's life so easily, even if the boy was a monster.

'Then again, this school is supposed to make sure monsters can live in peace with humans, so it'd be a shame if I killed the bastard before he got the chance to learn anything,' he thought grudgingly. 'Learning that not all humans are helpless victims will be a good first lesson.'

Ranma started to turn toward Tsukune to check on the boy when he noticed that he was being dragged away by Moka.

"Hey, Tsukune, you all right?" He called, starting to approach them.

Tsukune started to reply when Moka suddenly tugged him back.

"Tsukune's hanging out with me now!" the vampiress said sharply, glaring at Ranma. "Now leave us alone!"

Before either of the humans could say anything about the matter, Moka took off with Tsukune still in hand practically dragging the boy away at high speed.

Ranma, for his part, scratched his head in confusion. "Geez, what's HER problem?" He realized that he had been really rude when they first met, having briefly considered piercing her heart with a wooden spike, but he didn't see what he had done to deserve THIS kind of treatment.

Of course, mostly people probably didn't think of contemplating murder so lightly, but Ranma tended to call such situations "Monday". Usually followed by Attempted Murder Tuesdays, but that was another story.

"Wow, did you see that? That guy put down Saizo! That was amazing!" A nearby boy said to his friend.

"Well, it wasn't exactly a real fight," Ranma scoffed, idly kicking at Saizo's body and failing to notice as the boy's eyes glowed a fierce, bloody red briefly, "and it's not like this idiot's that tough. The bullies in my old high school were way stronger than this."

"No kiddin'!" Another student asked excitedly, joining a small crowd that had gathered around Ranma. "So spill! What kinda monster are you?"

"I'm human," Ranma said flatly, arms over his chest. "Weren't you paying attention during the fight? Human, human, human."

"Yeah, okay, you're human. But seriously," one of the shorter ones leaned forward, whispering. "It's all right, we won't tell anybody. What are you?"

"I told you, I'm a human!" Ranma growled, causing the monsters to flinch away.

"Lay off 'im Kaina, he's just following the rules," a lanky student said.

"No, I'm not! I'm really human!" Ranma said, almost shouting as he stamped a foot onto the ground. "You know what? The heck with this! I'm gonna go after Tsukune!"

The pigtailed boy jumped forward, pointedly ignoring a quick swipe for his legs made with a pair of twisted black talons that had grown from Saizo's crumpled body.

Without giving a single glance back at his defeated opponent or the annoying crowd, Ranma leapt through a nearby window and out into the courtyard.

* * *

"Moka, what's wrong? Why'd you say that to Ranma?" Tsukune asked, staring at the vampire girl cautiously. They were now in a yard behind the main building. Most of the students seemed to be getting accustomed to the main grounds, so they were alone.

Moka looked anxious as she regarded Tsukune. "Tsukune, you should stay away from Ranma from now on. He's not a good person."

The statement struck Tsukune like a hammer blow. "Wh-What? How do you figure that?" Granted, he didn't know Ranma that well, but considering that the older boy had defended him from Saizo, had been ready to defend him from Moka, and seemed to be the only other human on campus, he was well on his way to considering the martial artist his closest friend.

"Didn't you hear him? He's a human!" Moka said, her eyes creased with concern.

Tsukune gulped. "Oh? That? You don't really believe that, do you?" Of course **he** believed that Ranma was a human, but he wasn't about to admit that now. Besides, if it weren't for Tsukune's trusting naievette coupled with his desperate hope that he wasn't the only human on campus, he wouldn't have believed it either. "I mean, you saw what he did to Saizo back there. Do you really think that a human could pull that off?"

"Yes, I do," Moka said weakly. "They're pretty rare, but I've heard stories about vampire hunters before. Humans with amazing strength and skill that they put to use to kill my kind. I think he was telling the truth."

Tsukune blanched. "You think Ranma's a vampire hunter?"

"Well... maybe not," the vampiress said, frowning cutely. "I don't think he'd have let me live this long if he was, but that was just an example. He's definitely human."

And then her face shifted into a scowl. "And I HATE humans!"

Tsukune flinched. "Wha?" If Moka's warning had been a hammer blow, this admission struck him more like a freight train.

"I went to a human middle school," Moka explained, her expression hardening slightly. "I was so lonely there! They all said that monsters didn't exist and were just stupid stories! I never made any friends and I always felt terrible. After a while I started to feel like maybe it was better if I really didn't exist!"

Moka's face brightened considerably, although Tsukune's expression still seemed rather ashen. "That's why I was so happy when you said that you loved vampires! You're my first true friend, Tsukune!"

Tsukune's mouth worked soundlessly as he groped for something to say, but Moka continued, her face turning sour again.

"I don't know how Ranma got here, but he won't be here long. Either he'll leave on his own or he'll be driven out. And good riddance. We don't need his kind here."

Tsukune flinched again, and he balled his hands into fists as he finally forced the words from his throat. "Moka... what if... what if I told you that I was one of those humans that you hate?"

Moka froze. "Wh-What? Tsukune, stop kidding around."

"I'm not kidding!" He snapped angrily, backing away. "I am! I'm a human, just like Ranma! I ended up here by mistake. But so what? Is that so terrible?"

The vampire girl stepped back, her expression uncertain and fearful. "N-No way... there's no way that... not both of you..."

Tsukune was silent for several seconds before he turned away. "I see. Now that you know, that's how you look at me, huh? Fine. I was debating whether to leave the school anyway, and this clinches it. Goodbye."

Moka watched forlornly as Tsukune stalked off, looking about as close as the boy possibly could to furious.

'I can't believe it,' she thought weakly, slumping to her knees. 'He was a human all along? How did this happen?'

After a few moments of sulking, Moka glanced upward as she spied a red and black figure dashing around the corner of the school and vanishing in a blur. She only knew of one student that wore bright red on campus, and she correctly identified the figure as Ranma.

'I can't believe I was so stupid. Of course he was human. And there's no way he'd side with me against his own kind.'

She sighed.

'It's for the best that he leaves. Both of them. They'll never be accepted here, just like I was never accepted among humans. They don't belong here. I mean, when you think about it, there's no reason at all for them to stay with a bunch of dangerous students that will just end up hating them.'

Something about that last thought bothered her, and Moka frowned as she recalled the last thing Tsukune said before he left. 'Wait... he said he was debating whether or not to leave... but why would he stay? Does that mean...' her eyes widened. 'He was willing to stay just to be with me? He was going to put up with all the monsters and risk his life just because I was his friend?'

It seemed inconceivable to her, but the facts were clear. Tsukune had stated outright that Moka's rejection was the main factor in his decision to leave the school, which implied that the only reason he might have actually stayed, risking his life and sanity amongst a bunch of monsters, was to be with her. There might have been other reasons, but she sure couldn't think of any.

'I've made a terrible mistake!'

Moka stood up and was about to run after Tsukune when a loud crash came from behind her, causing her to whirl around.

Her eyes widened as a huge monster with long claws and one arm badly mangled shouldered through the wall of the school building, stomping past her without so much as a glance while growling hatefully.

"Was that... Saizo?" Moka asked, stunned as the creature took off ahead of her. "Wait... is he following Ranma? Oh no! Tsukune!"

* * *

"Hey Tsukune. You all right?"

Tsukune whirled around at the voice, and was immensely relieved to see Ranma come up behind him, hopping down from a tree. Although he found it odd that the older boy was bounding around in trees like a monkey, that detail hardly seemed important now.

"Hi Ranma. I'm... I'm sorry about what happened back there. Thank you for saving me from Saizo," he said profusely.

"No problem man, I was looking for an excuse to paste him anyway." Ranma noted that the smaller boy still looked quite depressed, and had his luggage with him. "You takin' off for good?"

Tsukune nodded. "I'm a human. I don't belong here. Heck, if it weren't for you I might already be dead! And since Moka apparently hates me, there's nothing left for me here." He scowled briefly, then glanced up at the older boy. "What about you? Are you leaving?"

Ranma scratched the back of his head. "Eh, I might as well. This school 'aint bad, but it 'aint good either. I don't mind all the monsters, but it's gonna be really annoying to start out as a freshman again, and since I AM a human, I don't think I need classes on how to act human, you know?"

Actually, Tsukune figured that Ranma could have used a little tutoring on that particular subject, but decided to remain silent.

Before the pair could continue talking, the old bus that had transported them to this place lumbered up behind Tsukune, stopping along the path with a hiss of steam.

"Huh. Well, I guess this's our bus," Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders.

Tsukune was a bit weirded out by the way the vehicle had arrived just as he and Ranma had concluded they were going to leave, but decided not to question his good fortune. "Aren't you going to get your backpack?"

Ranma shrugged. "Nah, there's nothing in there that I can't replace easily, and I don't know how often this bus runs. Probably best to just leave now."

At that moment the door opened, and the driver from before slowly stepped out onto the path, puffing on his pipe as he grinned at the teenagers.

"What's with the GHASTLY expressions, kids? Giving up on this place already?"

Ranma fought the urge to snap back at the phrase "giving up," but restrained himself.

Tsukune had no such reservations. "Yeah, I'm done. This place is too dangerous for me!"

"Ha ha ha!" The driver laughed, taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I knew you kids didn't stand a GHOST of a chance! Your tickets, please?"

Ranma and Tsukune blinked. "Tickets?" They asked in tandem.

"Well, of course! The school covers trips to get students here and to send them home after the semester, as well as school trips, but if you want to leave now, I'm afraid there's a MONSTER of a fee for you pay!"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched irritably. "I don't really have any money..."

Tsukune gulped as he opened his wallet, hoping that he had enough for him and Ranma. It was the least he could do after the older boy had saved him from that bully Saizo. "Will... 4,000 yen cover two tickets?"

The driver's response was to laugh heartily, and Ranma's face darkened.

"I'm afraid you're FATALLY mistaken if you think you can get out that cheaply! Why, getting out of here could cost you an ARM or a-"

* * *

"I don't think that was a good idea," Tsukune said worriedly as he stared at the bus driver. The man's head had been smashed into the engine block of the bus he was responsible for, and seemed to be stuck there rather firmly from what he could tell.

Ranma dusted off his hands, feeling much better after shutting up the old geezer. "Why? You think he didn't deserve that?"

"Well, that's less important than the fact that I think he's the only one who can drive that bus," Tsukune admitted.

Ranma froze as he considered this. "Oh. Good point." Then he shrugged. "Well, it's not like he was going to take us anyway."

"True, but how else are we supposed to get home? I don't know the way back from here, do you?" The shorter boy asked, gesturing to the land around him. "Heck, I don't even know where 'here' is!"

"Yeah, but..." Ranma trailed off as he heard a distant pounding noise, and then frowned. "Hold that thought, okay? Oh, and find some cover."

"Huh?" Tsukune blinked in confusion for a moment before he heard the sound too, and his eyes widened as he noticed something large and human-shaped charging from behind the withered trees.

_Crack! Crash!_ Saizo snarled as he ripped through the trees in his way with his good arm, the dry wood snapping and giving way before his bulk and muscle.

'I don't care what it takes! I don't care who gets in my way!' he snarled, his rage lighting up his eyes for all to see. 'I'm gonna take that pigtailed son of a goblin and gut him like a fish!'

Catching sight of something large to the side, Saizo hopped over a short cobblestone wall and beheld the target of his fury standing casually in the middle of the road in front of the school's only bus.

"Huh. Saizo, right?" Ranma asked, looking totally unconcerned as he stared up at the snarling monstrosity.

Saizo was now a hulking brute of a monster, over ten feet tall and bulging with muscle. His teeth had elongated and sharpened to points, as had his fingernails, which were probably the least threatening aspects of the two gigantic, man-sized fists the beast possessed. He still sported his earlier wound, as one of the fists was upside-down, but it didn't seem nearly as debilitating in this form.

"So you tried to run, huh? Guess you didn't make it in time," Saizo growled, choking out a short laugh as a long, wet tongue swung from between his lips.

"Yeah, guess not. Poor me," Ranma said, sounding bored. "But hey, at least I got to see something interesting before I left. I NEVER would've guessed your true form!"

Saizo hesitated, looking surprised. It was very difficult for people to guess his true form because he was a monstrel, a monster hybrid. Was this pigtailed brat really so well-versed in monster breeds that he could tell at a glance?

Ranma grinned. "You're one of those Barnum & Bailey rejects, aren't you?"

The sound of the vein popping up on Saizo's head very nearly shook the Earth.

"DIE, SCUM!" Saizo snarled, plowing a fist down toward Ranma, who leapt out of the way with ease, rebounding off the side of the bus.

"You can't run forever! Nothing's gonna keep me from killing you!"

"Wow, my first day and I've already made a mortal enemy," Ranma said, more to himself than the monster that was swiping at him clumsily. "I have to ask: do schools have a special program for this sort of thing? Is there a guy who heads out as soon as I arrive, finds the most unstable lunatic in school, and assigns him to attack me? Between you, Ryoga, and Kuno, I'm starting to think it isn't a coincidence."

"Shut... UP!" Saizo snarled, swiping over Ranma as he ducked and then trying to stomp on the boy only for him to vanish in a blur. "Gaaaaaargh! I'm sick of this!"

Ranma bounced backward, hands in his pockets as the beast roared, wondering if his opponent was going to do anything interesting. So far, this guy had only displayed maybe a third of Ryoga's power and something around a hundredth of the skill. Besides being huge, which tripled the potential avenues of attack, he telegraphed his moves to the extent that he'd probably have to stop and give Ranma written notice in order to become more predictable.

'I hope this guy can do SOMETHING interesting,' he thought, sighing.

With a fierce grunt, Saizo grabbed the wrist of his shattered left arm.

_Crack!_ Ranma blinked as the giant monster twisted the limb back into place, pausing only a moment before it flexed the fingers sluggishly.

"Huh. That's kind of neat," Ranma admitted, though it was rather crude, certainly. "Why didn't you do that earlier?"'

"Because shut up," Saizo growled. "Now it's your turn, little punk. Show me what you got."

"What, AGAIN? You just fixed your arm, and you want me to put it back already?" Ranma asked.

Saizo let out an incoherent snarl as he loomed over the martial artist. "I mean it's time you showed me your true form, bastard! I'm sick of swatting at gnats! Show me what I'm up against!"

Ranma glowered at the towering giant, his hand twitching into a fist as a thin blue aura enveloped him. "For the LAST TIME... I. Am. **Human**!"

And then Ranma's form seemed to vanish in a bright blue haze.

* * *

Tsukune grimaced as he ducked behind the bus, keeping himself safely out of the line of fire as Ranma fought. Personally he thought it was foolish for him to fight since they had ample time to get away, but the pigtailed boy insisted that he could win, and Tsukune wasn't going to argue.

"Tsukune! There you are!"

He blinked as he heard a familiar feminine voice behind him, and the boy raised an eyebrow as Moka dashed across the blasted plain toward the bus he was hiding behind.

"Thank goodness I'm not too late! I was afraid you'd already left!" Moka said, putting a hand against her chest as she reached Tsukune. She could hear heavy impacts and a pained grunting coming from the other side of the bus, but at the moment she was too relieved to care.

"Why did you come? What do you want?" Tsukune asked suspiciously, clutching his bag to his chest.

"I wanted to apologize," Moka said, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye. "I was so happy that I'd finally found a real friend, and it was so stupid of me to think of you as a different person just because you're human. Obviously you're different from the humans I knew before, and I can't believe I didn't realize that right away."

Tsukune's gaze softened, and his shoulders slumped. 'Wow, she really came all the way back here to apologize to me? Do I mean that much to her? We only met this morning!'

His expression hardening, Tsukune spoke. "Moka, I want to be your friend too!"

"Really?" Moka asked, more tears spilling from her eyes.

"Geez, a little overdramatic, aren't ya?"

Tsukune and Moka jerked their heads up toward Ranma, who was squatting on the roof of the bus and looking down at them.

Moka's expression soured. "Do you mind? We're kind of having a moment, here."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "I'm just sayin', you had a little fight and you're gettin' all teary-eyed over it. It's not like one of you had to rescue the other from a martial arts prince or what's that look for?" he asked suddenly, noticing that Tsukune's eyes widened.

Ranma let out a cry of surprise as a gigantic, blood-soaked hand closed around him, snatching him off of the roof and back into the tussle on the other side of the bus.

"Where were we? Oh, right." Moka immediately grabbed onto Tsukune's shoulders, smiling again as she ignored the boy's panicked expression. "I thought it was impossible for me to have a human friend; I'm a vampire, and that means we have to feed on human blood. It made me so happy when I found someone who didn't mind letting me have some of his blood, and when I really thought you were going to leave for good..."

Tsukune, though feeling conflicted about putting aside Ranma's fate for the sake of his dramatic conversation, took Moka's hands, smiling as he gazed into her eyes. "Well, I'm hardly an expert on human-monster relations, but why can't a vampire and the human she feeds on be friends? If you're willing to accept me even though I'm a human, then I can accept you even though you're a vampire!"

Moka sniffled slightly, wiping her eyes as she smiled brightly. "Thank you, Tsukune!" She said, hugging the boy tightly and eliciting a surprised squeak from him.

After a few seconds, she pulled away reluctantly. "I suppose we should go see if Ranma's okay..." she blinked in surprise as things suddenly got darker for a moment, and quickly realized that she had been briefly eclipsed from something passing overhead.

_THUD!_ Both of them jumped as Saizo's monstrous body plowed into the dirt, leaving a shallow imprint in the ground shaped like his huge, twitching body.

"Yeah, I think Ranma's fine," Tsukune deadpanned, moving around the front of the bus to seek out his other friend.

Ranma was standing in the middle of a field of shallow impact craters, grimacing at the blood on his arms and clothes. "Aw, man, I got Saizo on my shirt. And his blood is the wrong shade of red, too. Crap."

He looked up toward Tsukune, who was sweatdropping at the sight. "Hey, Tsukune, I don't think I can leave the academy forever with you after all; I really have to go back and change, now."

More sweatdrops rolled down Tsukune's brow as he considered Ranma changing a major decision like that based on the status of his laundry. "That's okay, I'm not leaving either."

"You're not?" Moka asked hopefully. "Really? You're going to stay here after all?"

"Of course! As long as I have you guys, I'm sure I'll be fine!" Tsukune said happily, clenching a hand into a fist.

Ranma smirked as he joined the others in walking back toward campus. "Heh. You're all right, Tsukune."

Moka's nose wrinkled, and her expression got a lot less happy as she gazed over at the other boy. "Ewww... that's so gross..."

"Yeah, I KNOW. That's why I wanna go back and wash," Ranma said irritably, his good mood evaporating as quickly as Moka's. "Besides, don't you drink this stuff, anyway?"

"I don't drink MONSTER blood! Yuck! It smells awful!" the vampiress complained.

"Yeesh, where do you get off bein' so picky?" the pigtailed boy said condescendingly. "Blood is blood, right?"

"You don't know ANYTHING!" Moka snapped, fuming angrily.

Tsukune sighed lightly as the two continued snapping at each other. 'I guess they still don't get along, even if she's no longer upset about him being human,' he thought. 'It's going to be a long semester, isn't it?'

* * *

"Th-These are the dorms?" Tsukune asked shakily, staring up at the decrepit-looking apartment building.

The student residences, it seemed, were as run-down and spooky as everything else in this place, at least as far as the exterior was concerned. Large dead trees and gravestones littered the grounds outside of the building, and rats scurried across the dirt as they were hunted by tremendous, hairy spiders.

"This place is great! I've never seen a building with so much personality!" Moka said happily, causing Tsukune to grimace.

The only normal person in the trio turned toward Ranma, who had lowered himself into a crouch as he observed one of the larger tarantulas. "Wh-What do you think, Ranma?"

"I think these spiders are big enough to eat any cats that wander around here," he said firmly, turning a serious expression toward Tsukune and giving the younger boy a thumbs-up. "As far as I'm concerned, this place looks fine."

Tsukune honestly wasn't sure which stamp of approval disturbed him more.

"Hey Tsukune, you got into a double, right?" Ranma asked, taking Tsukune's papers from trembling fingers. "I thought so! Looks like we're roomies!"

"Oh, that's good," the shorter boy said, feeling genuine relief. "I wouldn't want to have to share a room with someone like Saizo, and it's better that we room together, so that it's easier to keep our secret."

"How'd you find out about the curse?" Ranma asked, looking shocked.

Moka and Tsukune stared at him blankly.

"And what I meant by that, of course, was: what secret is that, again?" Ranma said, recovering admirably from his slip-up.

"Uh... us being human?" Tsukune offered, scratching his head.

Ranma's face darkened. "That 'aint no secret, it's a fact. Not my fault that people don't believe me."

"Yes, it IS your fault," Moka said dryly. "You're as violent as any monster I've ever met."

Tsukune cut in immediately, trying to stop the inevitable fight between Ranma and Moka. "But anyway, isn't it better that people don't know you're human? If they did believe you, they'd try to kill you!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "As far as I can tell, they try that even when they think I'm a monster. Besides, I don't mind if they try and kill me. Happens so often these days that I've practically put it into my normal practice regimen."

"That's horrifying," Tsukune deadpanned. "But besides that, I'd like to at least keep it a secret that I'M a human."

"Huh. Okay, yeah, that seems like a good idea," the pigtailed boy agreed. Although he was pretty sure he could keep anyone from killing Tsukune if they tried, it would be a pain to have to protect the younger boy ALL the time.

Moka frowned. "What did you say earlier? About a curse?"

"Ohlookthere'sourroombettergetallsetupseeyaMoka," _Slam!_

Before the vampiress knew what was happening, Ranma had grabbed Tsukune and vanished into their dorm room, leaving only a cloud of dust in their wake.

* * *

Tsukune wobbled slightly from the sudden change in velocity, and eventually collapsed on his bed, groaning.

"Well, at least the inside isn't so bad," the younger boy mumbled, staring at the plain and spartan bedroom spaced adequately for two beds and shelving, accompanied by a decent-sized bathroom and a small living room between the beds and the door.

Ranma was drying his hands as he re-entered the bedroom. "Yeah, they seem to have a theme goin' here. Dark and spooky on the outside, nice and normal on the inside." He stopped for a moment as he thought about that. "Pretty much the exact opposite of the students."

"You know, I've been meaning to mention this, but you're taking this whole thing incredibly well," Tsukune admitted, sitting up on his bed. "I mean, sure, you're a great martial artist with the power to fight monsters, but even so, doesn't this even faze you a little bit? I thought I was going crazy when I sat through our homeroom class!"

Ranma frowned as he started digging through his backpack. "Well, when you get right down to it, this is probably the weirdest place I've ever actually been to... well... maybe second weirdest. Wait... okay, it definitely makes my top five," he clarified. "Anyway, my point is that I've been in a lot of bizarre situations, and this one isn't so bad. Besides, having a normal guy like you around is a big help."

Tsukune blinked. "It is?" As far as he knew, he'd only been a burden to Ranma thus far in forcing him into a fight with Saizo.

"Sure. It's relaxin' having a guy to talk to who isn't crazy, stupid, or a some kinda parasite person," he said casually, causing Tsukune to wince.

"Uh, yeah, about that, I kind of wish you and Moka wouldn't fight so much," Tsukune began diplomatically. "I'm not taking sides here, but I really think you two could be friends if you tried not to antagonize each other."

Ranma gave him a weird look as he pulled out a spare set of clothes. "Who says we can't antagonize each other and still be friends?"

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Well, it's still better if you don't, I think."

"Ah, I think you're overreacting," Ranma said, standing up. "Anyway, I'm gonna wash up now. Out in a bit."

Tsukune sighed as the bathroom door closed, and then unzipped his bag so that he could unpack himself.

Happening upon his toothbrush and other bathroom supplies right away, he took them up and then approached the bathroom door, knocking politely.

"Hey, Ranma, can I put my things away in there, or should I wait?" he asked.

"Uh... now isn't really a good time..." came a voice from within the restroom.

A female voice, specifically.

"What? Who's in there?" Tsukune demanded, pulling the door open to look inside.

Brown eyes locked onto blue as he found himself staring into the eyes of a rather annoyed-looking redheaded girl.

Or at least, that's what Tsukune would fiercely claim if asked. Given that the girl was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a bemused expression, he could be forgiven if her eyes weren't the first thing he stared at.

"What... How... Why..." Tsukune babbled uselessly as he looked over the girl who was very nearly a match for Moka in how cute she was, and definitely beat the vampiress hands-down in terms of "bodily development".

The girl, for her part, got even more annoyed as more time went on. "So, you gonna put your things away, or just stand there gaping?"

_Slam!_ Tsukune immediately shut the door in front of him and then slumped down against it, his heart pounding in his chest.

'Well, this day is now pretty much in the running for both the best and the worst day of my life,' he thought, his eyebrow twitching sporadically. 'I mean, sure, I got dropped off in a school of homicidal monsters, one of whom almost took me apart, but hey! Today I actually talked to a girl! And touched a girl! And saw a girl almost NAKED! This place is great! It's terrible! I think I'm going insane!'

Tsukune shook his head to clear it, and then wobbled slightly as he stood up straight, staring at the door. 'No, wait, think about this. That person had the exact same hairstyle as Ranma, right? And the same eye color. She just had, you know, NOTHING ELSE IN COMMON WITH THE PERSON WHO ENTERED THAT ROOM. Something's fishy here...'

Without bothering to knock this time, Tsukune steeled himself and pulled the door open again.

Ranma turned to look at him from where he was relaxing in the bath. "Yo. You can drop your things off if you'd like, I don't mind."

Tsukune stared at the obviously male figure for a moment, and then let out a light, slightly pained chuckle.

"Ah, good. You're not a girl after all. Then that means I'm just crazy. What a relief!" He didn't look at all relieved, and Ranma got the distinct impression that the younger boy would curl up into a fetal position and start rocking back and forth if he didn't explain things.

"Look, would you relax? You're not crazy," Ranma deadpanned, rubbing some shampoo into his hair. "Just lemme wash and I'll explain everything when I get out, okay? I was going to show this to you a little later, maybe when you didn't have so much on your plate already, but that 'aint an option now. So just wait."

"Oh, okay. And then I'll know where the pretty lady went?" Tsukune asked, obviously in a daze.

"Yes. I'll explain all about the pretty lady," Ranma said calmly.

"Oh. That's good," Tsukune said softly, turning rigidly and hobbling out of the bathroom.

Ranma sighed as the door closed behind his roommate. "Oi. I don't really mind this place so much, but I really feel for the kid. Not everybody gets ten years of hard training and another two to build up their Weird Resistance before they get dumped into places like this. It's gotta be hard on him."

"Gah! Ranma! One of the spiders got in!" Tsukune called from the other side of the door.

Ranma frowned. "So? Either shoo it outside or kill it!" Really, Tsukune was kind of a wimp, but freaking out over spiders? The school really must've been getting to him after all.

"I can't! It's too big!" came the ordinary boy's frantic shout.

"Yeah, I'm sure it's huge. Just get a shoe or something!" Ranma shouted back, sinking further into the water.

"It has a HEALTH BAR!"

Ranma immediately jumped out of the water, tying a towel around his waist with one hand while grabbing a plunger with the other. "Dammit. This place has problems."

* * *

Half an hour later, a female, redheaded Ranma was sitting in front of a gaping Tsukune... in front of a twenty-pound, solid black spider corpse, complete with an empty horizontal rectangle floating over it.

"... And that's the story in a nutshell," she finished, glancing at the kettle that was just starting to steam on top of the small plug-in stove Ranma carried in her backpack.

"And hot water changes you back into a boy?" Tsukune asked, looking far more stable and relaxed now that the giant arachnid had been vanquished and the mysterious redhead had been explained.

"Exactly," Ranma confirmed, lifting the kettle over her head and changing genders under a stream of steaming liquid.

Tsukune observed the change closely, fascinated by how smooth it was. Ranma's height shot up considerably as his hair shifted color, and his chest shriveled as his waist expanded slightly, replacing the soft, feminine curves with hard-packed muscle.

Of course, there was one region of Ranma's body that was probably subject to a much more complex and abrupt transformation between genders, but Tsukune's curiosity didn't extend THAT far.

The younger boy sighed. "So it's just a curse. That's a relief. I was afraid that maybe you were a monster after all."

"Nope!" Ranma said immediately, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I keep telling EVERYONE, I'm completely, genuinely human."

"I know, but... man, you sure make it hard to believe," Tsukune chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

Ranma accepted that as an endorsement of how awesome he was, and smirked slightly before a thought occurred to him, turning his smirk into a frown.

"Not that I don't appreciate you believing me, but... well, would it matter that much to you if I **was** a monster?" Ranma asked cautiously. He wasn't sure what possessed him to ask such a question, but he was thoroughly surprised and quite pleased with the answer.

"If you were a monster? No, it'd be fine if you were a monster," Tsukune said, blinking in surprise. "As long as, you know, you didn't kill me for being human, anyway." Then he pursed his lips nervously. "It's just that... well... I'd be kind of disappointed if it turned out you lied to me after all."

Ranma honestly felt a bit touched at the admission of trust, and sat there stunned for several seconds before he shook his head. "Hey, what's with all the sappy talk? Save it for your girlfriend," he said gruffly, smiling nonetheless as he stood up.

Tsukune flushed at the thought of Moka actually being his girlfriend, but banished the thought and scrambled to his feet. "Here, I'll take care of this body. Then we can finally get some sleep." Showing only slight hesitation toward the battered arachnid corpse, he grabbed hold of one of the legs that wasn't covered in ichor and started dragging it toward the door.

"Did you check it for money?" Ranma asked, looking over a shoulder as he pulled out some instant noodles for dinner.

Tsukune stopped and fixed his roommate with an incredulous stare. "Why would a spider have money?"

"You'd be surprised," Ranma mumbled, turning back toward his meal.

Shaking his head, Tsukune dragged the deceased creature out of the front door, and then started down the hallway, wondering to himself where he was going to dump the repulsive thing.

As it just so happened, luck was on his side, and Tsukune jumped slightly as the door to the room next to his suddenly opened up.

"Oh! Uh... hello," Tsukune said weakly, looking up at a giant man who was leaning his head out of his room. The man looked foreign, not that it really mattered in this school, with a huge barrel chest complemented by bulging muscles that honestly reminded Tsukune of Saizo's monster form, despite looking fully human. He had bleached-blond hair slicked back over his head, and an enormous chin that easily dominated his facial features.

"Eh? Who're you?" the giant asked, idly pumping a barbel in his right hand.

"Me? I'm Aono Tsukune," the human boy said, trying his best to mask his nervousness. "Ah, I suppose I'm one of your neighbors, actually."

The larger man's face split into a crude grin. "Huh. Well, it's nice ta meetcha', Aono. I'm Rikishi, but you can call me Chopper."

"Y-Yes. Nice to meet you," Tsukune said quickly, bowing to what he presumed was a very large and inevitably powerful monster.

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds as Rikishi continued pumping his barbel and Tsukune continued wondering what the other man wanted.

"Hey," Rikishi said finally, "you gonna eat that?"

Tsukune sweatdropped heavily, and then raised the leg of the dead spider. "Nuh-uh. All yours."

"Hey, thanks pal! You're all right, Aono!" Rikishi said, his grin getting even broader as he closed a large, meaty fist around the corpse's leg and dragged it into his dorm room.

Tsukune looked fairly disturbed by the time the door closed in front of him, but he had to admit that his neighbor's eating habits had saved him from most of the work of disposing of that corpse.

With a rather grim chuckle, he opened the door to his room and went in to join Ranma for dinner.

It was for this reason that he missed the hearty exclamation coming from Rikishi's room a few seconds later.

"Sweet! I found a gold ring!"

* * *

Ranma frowned as he entered his first real class of the day, annoyed to see that the only desks available were up in front.

'Oh well, time to see what this school has to offer,' he thought to himself morosely, seating himself next to a twitchy-looking guy twirling a pencil about nervously.

It occurred to him early on that if some of the classes were monster-related, at the very least this high school wouldn't be as boring as Furinkan. And since many of the other classes were disgustingly normal, such as math and art, hopefully his experience at Youkai would balance out such that he would actually learn something he'd need without being driven into a coma every day.

Of course, the ultimate "mission" of this instruction was still rather dubious to him, as he didn't need any instruction to live amongst humans (or so he was firmly convinced, anyway), but Ranma decided to give it a shot. After all, if Tsukune, who was basically a bag of meat waiting to get ripped open, could put up with classes, who was he to give up so easily?

As the class bell rung Ranma was startled out of his thoughts, and he turned toward the entrance along with all the other students as a final figure entered.

The man who Ranma presumed was his Physical Science teacher sashayed casually into the room, the movements muted by the long black robe he wore. Ranma immediately pegged him as some sort of zombie or something, as his body looked utterly emaciated and bone white.

The teacher's face was mostly hidden by a crimson-lined cowl and a black cloth mask that covered his mouth and nose, leaving his glowing yellow eyes exposed for all to see. He also had a few bright green markings around his left eye, though Ranma couldn't imagine why anyone would get such small and pointless tattoos.

"Hello, class," the teacher said upon reaching the podium, his clawed hands clasped behind his back. "Welcome to first year Physical Science. I am your instructor... **RICHARD**!"

The man suddenly thrust his fists up into the air, and most of the class jumped as thunder suddenly boomed from outside while lightning flashed through the windows.

"Chief warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the undead, Professor of Earth Science, and Executive Manager of the local teacher's union Youkai division 42!"

After his dramatic and rather long-winded introduction, Richard clasped his hands behind his back again. "Any questions?"

The twitchy fellow adjacent to Ranma pointed to their instructor. "Is that supposed to be your human form?"

Richard steepled his fingers in front of his face as he adopted a thoughtful expression. "Hmm... how best to answer that... I know!"

_FWOOM!_ With a brief hand gesture, a thick, swirling stream of fire suddenly poured out of the warlock's fingers, and Ranma ducked desperately out of the way as the boy next to him screamed.

After a few seconds the fire abated, and Ranma slowly turned around to see the charred husk of the student next to him, smoke pouring off of him and veins of glowing embers running through what was left of his body.

"Did... Did you just kill him for asking a stupid question?" Ranma asked nervously.

"Oh, don't worry, I didn't kill him," Richard scoffed, the flames around his hands still flickering.

"Neidama! He's not moving! He's really dead!" A different student shouted in terror and sorrow.

"After all," the science instructor continued as if the other student hadn't said anything, "a little fire blast like that could never kill a monster. He'll be fine."

"Neidama's a forest imp! He's made of WOOD!"

Richard turned back toward his podium, opening a book. "Yes, a few hours rest and he'll be back on his feet, good as new."

Then the warlock snapped his fingers, and his students winced as a totally unnecessary eldritch thunderclap resulted along with a small arc of lightning around his hand. "That does remind me, though. I'm going to need a special class officer to assist me during class."

"You mean to get equipment or help with lab experiments?" One girl in the back asked, raising her hand.

"Yeah, sure. That, plus disposing of corpses as the day goes on," Richard said bluntly.

Ranma blanched. "You're telling me you're actually PLANNING on killing more students?"

"Uh... wait! Wait, I know the answer to this one!" Richard insisted, waving a hand at the pigtailed boy as he massaged his brow. "Got it!"

_Shingk!_ Ranma quickly raised the top of his desk up to block the lance of ice that had been aimed at his heart, and his eyebrow twitched as he watched the needle-sharp point of the projectile pierce the obstacle and slow to a stop just millimeters from the surface of his shirt.

"Ooh, you actually survived!" Richard said, sounding pleased as his hands glowed an ethereal blue. "Ah... I mean, of course a monster would be able to handle a little cantrip like that."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched harder. "I'm not a monster. I'm a human."

As was the usual reaction whenever he said that in front of new people, there was a brief stunned silence and several raised eyebrows.

"Huh," Richard said intelligently, his arms hanging limply before flicking his fingers at the pigtailed boy.

"Yipe!" Ranma quickly jumped up onto the ceiling, clinging onto it for dear life as his desk suddenly lit ablaze. "Hey! Knock it off!"

Richard snorted. "Human. Riiiight. Well 'human,' you're it."

"I'm what?"

Richard's mask shifted slightly, indicating a smile. "You're my new bitc... aide. Definitely meant aide."

"What? I didn't volunteer for nothin'!" Ranma complained, still clinging to the ceiling with his pigtail hanging down.

"It's really more of conscription thing," Richard explained, shrugging as if he was helpless in the matter.

"Forget it! Why should I help you?" Ranma demanded, readying himself to dodge any more bolts of elemental power.

Oddly enough, the warlock seemed to be taking his question seriously as he tapped the surface of his mask with a claw. "Well, there's always the basic advantages of being the servant of an all-powerful lord of darkness. You know, resources to squander, power to abuse, babes in slutty armor..."

"Meh," Ranma said, utterly unimpressed by the offer.

"Also, you earn an automatic 'A' on all homework assignments I assign, so you don't have to do them."

"Where did you want Neidama's body, again?"

* * *

"Well, this guy looks normal enough," Ranma mumbled as he took a seat at a desk in the middle of the room, ready for his next class. His Physical Science class had certainly taken a weird enough turn, not to mention a dangerous one, as evidenced by the fact that one of his sleeves had been burnt off of his shirt and his arm had been bandaged up.

He had managed to keep Richard from summarily executing any other students, though much to Ranma's annoyance, that had only been achieved by making himself the warlock's primary target. And judging by his first class, Richard's method of instruction was one tenth lecturing, one tenth lab work, and eight tenths bombarding his students with whatever elements he happened to be talking about at the time.

'It's a good thing I hate homework so much.'

This instructor at least LOOKED a little more sensible. The blond, rather bishonen man was sitting quietly behind his desk, thumbing through a book. His light hair was wavy and cut short, and he was wearing a neatly pressed dark gray outfit that looked to Ranma to be some sort of uniform.

Though no matter how normal the instructor looked, the name of the class still bothered him. 'Dealing with Devil Hunters? What kind of a class is that?'

In retrospect, he really shouldn't have chosen the class according to what title sounded the least boring.

As the clock marked the start of the new hour, and the exact moment that class was to begin, the teacher's head suddenly snapped upward, and he swept his eyes over the class with a stern, contemptuous gaze.

The man stood up and squared his shoulders as he clasped his hands behind his back.

"I see no vacant seats, so it would seem you're all here on time. Good. It's rather discouraging to start off the semester watching a tardy classmate having the life-force wrenched from their bodies, which WILL be the disciplinary measure utilized should any of you dare to be late to MY class."

He took a breath before continuing. "I am Jadeite, your instructor for Dealing with Devil Hunters. Unfortunately this will likely be your only class in this subject, as the school curriculum stresses the importance of simply avoiding and evading devil hunters rather than exterminating them, and that doesn't require nearly as much instruction and training. FOOLS, ALL OF THEM!"

The class generally looked surprised at the sudden outburst, but there were no interruptions as Jadeite calmed down and then continued.

"Devil hunters are the bane of all monster society. Not only are they dangerous to your physical health when they attack, but they threaten the dignity of all dark creatures with their sheer stupidity... especially when coupled with the fact that they always seem to win. Nobody likes losing, but losing to someone who you can't possibly respect as a credible opponent is the worst."

Ranma raised an eyebrow at the sheer amount of bitterness in the man's voice. "You sound like this is kinda personal to you."

Jadeite fixed his glare on the pigtailed boy. "Have you ever heard of the Negaverse, child?"

"No, doesn't ring a bell," Ranma said after a moment of thought.

"Yeah. There's a REASON for that," the blond man deadpanned. "Which actually brings me to the main subject of today's lecture, the worst and most vile of the hateful and genocidal devil hunters: the magical girl."

He said the phrase with an angry sneer, his eyebrow twitching irritably. His students mostly snorted quietly or tried to hold in laughter.

"The magical girl is the scum of the human world, an infectious, disgusting, CUTE abomination manifest in sparkly gems and frilly outfits. They are the most disgusting humans, gifted with tremendous power and none of the skill, instruction, or intellect to properly use it. Bumbling around in the thick of battle, nearly as dangerous to friend as to foe, they are the WORST KIND of devil hunter, a class of human which already occupies the lowest and most despicable ranks among the filthy cattle!"

Ranma was about to say something angry about being called "filthy cattle" when a girl near the front raised her hand first.

"Sensei, do you include witches among the 'magical girls'?" She asked anxiously. It was fairly obvious why she'd be concerned, given that she was wearing a cape and a stereotypical witch hat in class; she and Ranma were the only ones not wearing a proper uniform. She also looked way too young to be in high school, but again Ranma figured that appearances meant little where monsters were concerned.

To the girl's relief, Jadeite shook his head. "No, witches are, of course, a monstrous variety of magical girl, and although a rare few would count themselves among devil hunters, generally they're very different..."

The little witch sighed in relief.

"... Except for their status among monsters, which perfectly mirrors that of the magical girl among humans. That is to say, approximate to the slimy gunk that grows on the edge of the pool." The witch wilted as Jadeite spoke with a perfectly straight, professional manner, as if he wasn't talking about the girl at all, or had somehow overlooked her species.

"Anyway, if I may continue my lecture..." Jadeite glared across the class briefly before clearing his throat. "During this class, you will pry into the mind of the devil hunter, find out what makes her tick, what her weak points are, and then, you will learn how to utterly DESTROY her."

Ranma raised his hand. "But you said that the curriculum-WHOA!" He ducked as a ball of darkness rocketed over his head, and the projectile barely missed the student behind him before plowing into the wall. _BWOOM!_

"It will not be easy," Jadeite continued as if nothing ever happened, his hand still crackling with dark lightning, "but it will be worthwhile. So long as the magical girl threat exists, ALL monsterkind is threatened with extermination, and you... you, my faithful students, will END this menace once and for all!"

The students started to cast glances at each other uneasily as their teacher's eyes seemed to glaze over slightly.

"Yes... Yes! They thought me defeated... routed by those foul magic girls, cast aside by my queen, entombed in crystal, forced to teach at this wretched academy to pay the scamming bastards that eventually released me..."

"Hey, teach?" Ranma asked, leaning forward in his desk.

"But I won't give up. Jadeite will never give up," he continued mumbling, his eyebrow twitching violently as he was encompassed in a sickly black aura. "This has been a setback, yes, but even after the destruction of my army and my home and my liege..."

"Hey, Jadeite-sensei!" Ranma tried again.

"Jadeite will rise again! Yes, I'll return Sailor Moon, with a WHOLE NEW ARMY, and then, as we dance among the flickering hellfire around your splintered bones, we'll-"

"HEY, BLONDIE! SHUT UP!" Ranma finally shouted.

Jadeite promptly shot straight up, his aura winking out. "I... wait, where am I?"

The dark general glanced left and right, looking over the rather confused and disturbed class.

Then he relaxed his posture and gently cleared his throat. "As I was saying. Read chapters one and two in your textbook and then do all the review questions at the end of each chapter, class dismissed," he said quickly, immediately turning on his heel and then vanishing into an inky black portal.

* * *

"Well, that's just great. Just flippin' perfect," Ranma grumbled as he trudged through the halls of Youkai Academy, glaring pointlessly at the cover of his Devil Hunters Throughout History textbook. "I've only been to three classes so far, and one of my teachers is a murderous psycho, the other is a manic-depressive loser on a revenge kick, and my homeroom teacher..." his face twisted into an expression of even greater disgust, "might be a **cat**."

He rubbed his head as he looked over his schedule. "Well, that's it for classes today. Tomorrow I've got the normal classes, apparently: math and government. Hm... Tsukune has the same math class as me, but that's it, I guess."

At the thought of his friend and roommate, Ranma frowned and scratched his chin. "I wonder where he is right now, anyway... I should keep an eye on him whenever I can; around here he can get jumped at pretty much any time, and I don't think Moka could do much to protect him..."

He couldn't help but snort at that. Weren't vampires supposed to be super-strong and natural killers and whatnot? Moka seemed as dangerous as a housefly and only half as aggressive. Which were actually points in her favor, as far as Ranma was concerned, but it was still weird how... normal she was.

'Hard to believe she had trouble fitting in among humans,' he thought to himself, passing by the infirmary with his hands in his pockets, 'aside from the blood sucking thing, she's probably the most normal girl I know.'

Stopping in place, Ranma frowned as he looked at the mostly empty halls. "Ah, you know what? Maybe I'll just get something to eat instead. Tsukune's a nice enough kid, and he doesn't start any trouble. I'm sure he can last a full afternoon without me to look after him."

"GET AWAY FROM TSUKUNE!" Came a scream from within the infirmary, followed by the distinctive sound of shattering glass.

Ranma's face darkened. "Oh-kay then..." Whirling around, the pigtailed man dashed for the infirmary door.

* * *

"Leave Tsukune alone, Kurumu! This has nothing to do with him!" Moka shouted from where she and Tsukune were huddled under a dead tree.

Flying above them on great, bat-like wings was a buxom girl with light blue hair tied into a short ponytail on the back of her head and with a spade-tipped tail hanging from her rear. "This has everything to do with him! Bad enough you steal the splotlight from me, but being rejected by someone like him is adding insult to injury! I won't stand for this! I'll kill both of you!"

Flexing her fingers, Kurumu's nails grew to match the length of her fingers, and she dove low at the couple below, swiping broadly at them.

"Duck!" Moka shouted, pushing Tsukune to the ground as the other girl passed overhead.

_Shwip! Shwap!_ The trees nearby immediately toppled over, and Tsukune's eyes bugged out as he saw that their trunks had been sliced through cleanly.

'Sharp! Too sharp! There's no way we'll survive if she hits us with that!'

Kurumu gained some altitude as she recovered from her first pass, turning around in the air.

"Hmph! Is this all you're capable of, Moka? How disappointing! I heard that the vampire is supposed to be the strongest of all monsters!" With that taunt, she raised her wings and started her second dive, only partially aware of someone shouting something behind her. "This time I'll-wait, mouko what?"

The flying girl yelped painfully as a sphere of blue light smashed into her back, and Moka and Tsukune gaped as she was sent spiraling through the air toward the ground.

_Whump! Thump! Thud!_ Kurumu shouted helplessly as her body bounced across the ground, and she let out a loud, panicked cry as she finally rolled hard into a tree.

Moka and Tsukune stared at the sight trying to figure out what had just happened until Ranma leapt down in front of them, having jumped from the infirmary window.

"Flying is easy," the pigtailed boy said, grinning, "landing is hard."

"Ranma! Oh, thank God," Tsukune mumbled, sighing in relief. Even Moka, who generally found the other human unpleasant, looked pleased at his entrance.

"So who's this chick, Tsukune? Old girlfriend, jealous rival, new fiancee..." Ranma asked, ticking off the possibilities on his fingers.

"The second one," Moka said, her eyes hardening. "Her name's Kurono Kurumu! She's some succubus that's been trying to enslave the boys here!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "A succubus?"

* * *

Shizuka Nekonome grinned cattily as she waved. "Hello everyone! Today we're going to learn about the succubus!"

She pointed to a chalkboard, which had a reasonably detailed sketch of Kurumu on it.

"Succubae are demonic female creatures from medieval legend that enter the dreams of men and seduce them to drain their life force!"

She pointed to another drawing of a stick figure in bed with several Z's coming from it.

"The modern succubus is more direct than that, and most don't need to absorb any additional energy from men in order to survive anyway, which has actually given them something of a reputation as harmless 'eye candy' monsters. Their monster form is very close to their human form, although they possess bat-like wings and occasionally other demonic traits, such as tails, horns, razor teeth, etc. This is thought to be from the succubae's erratic mating patterns, since they frequently seduce creatures of other species."

Shizuka shook her head. "But don't be fooled by their reputation! A succubus can be very strong, and possesses charm and illusion magic! Although not the best up-front fighter, a man who lets his guard down around one won't last long!"

The cat-woman bowed, and then waved goodbye. "See you next time!"

* * *

"Th-That's right!" Kurumu stuttered, slowly pulling herself up off the ground and wincing at the effort. "I am a succubus! And that's why I can't lose here!"

"Huh?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow. "Run that one by me again?"

Kurumu puffed her chest out as she stood up proudly, ignoring the slight cracking noise and horrendous pain that resulted. "The race of the succubae are dying out! Every remaining succubus has one grand mission: to find a male worthy of fathering her offspring! That's why I need the men of Youkai Academy! Surely ONE of them is monster enough to be my 'Mate of Fate'!"

Tsukune shook his head. "Even if you say that, you can't just brainwash people! It's not right!"

"Shut up!" Kurumu countered, "I'll do anything to find my future husband! I'll charm the entire school if I have to! If necessary, I'll even KILL!"

Moka looked horrified at the other girl's determination as the succubus stalked forward.

Ranma, for his part, had been silent during the exchange between Kurumu and Tsukune, and suddenly pointed toward the bluette. "Question."

Kurumu stopped in her tracks, blinking. "Huh? What?"

"Succubae are sex demons, right?" He asked tactlessly.

Kurumu's cheeks reddened as she fixed Ranma with an annoyed glare. "We're... called that sometimes, yes," she admitted.

"So, your thing is that you seduce men. That's basically your monster power," Ranma continued.

"Are you going anywhere with this?" Kurumu asked, crossing her arms under her breasts and tapping her foot.

"It's just..." Ranma scratched his head. "How is it that a race of monster whose ability is basically to sleep around is dying out? Is there something wrong with how you reproduce or do you guys keep getting killed off or what?"

Kurumu stared blankly at Ranma. Ranma stared expectantly at Kurumu. Moka and Tsukune stared at each other, shrugging briefly before they turned back to the face-off.

"I..." Kurumu started hesitantly. "It's because... we're... uh..." her brow furrowed. "I... never really thought of that," she finally admitted. "I have no idea." She knew that Ranma's description of her powers was an ignorant simplification, but ultimately her foe had a point: succubae were by and large sexy, receptive, and not very quick to fight. How DID her race come to the edge of extinction, anyway?

Ranma just rolled his eyes at her confusion. "So your whole 'poor me, I'm endangered' spiel is a load of bull, huh? Whatever. Like I care about your stupid excuses."

"It is not stupid!" Kurumu shouted, instantly angry again as she took to the air and lengthened her nails once more. "I don't have to take this! I don't care if you are a vampire, I'll still take you down!"

"What **about** Moka? You're fighting ME now!" Ranma asserted, slipping into a looser combat stance as Kurumu began her dive.

"Who did you THINK I was talking about?" the succubus shouted, rearing one arm back to rip straight through her foe. "Now this is the-URK!"

Her battle cry was interrupted as Kurumu's wrist was grabbed mid-attack and then released as Ranma kicked out her feet, causing her to tumble painfully along the ground as her momentum bled away.

"Whoa, slow down there," Ranma growled as the succubus pulled herself up. "What did you mean by that back there?"

Kurumu looked confused as she wiped some dirt off of her face. "Aren't you a vampire? That's the rumor going around campus. And it's no surprise, considering your strength and speed when you won't even drop your disguise."

A vein popped up on Ranma's head.

"No, he's not a vampire!" Moka protested, looking quite put out by the assumption. "Vampires are elegant and wise! How could you mistake a brute like him for one of us?"

A second vein popped up on Ranma's head.

"Well, whatever you are, I won't lose to-" Kurumu declared, her voice cutting out as Ranma's form flickered, "What? Where-"

_Whoomph!_ Kurumu suddenly flew forward as an open-palm strike slammed into her from behind.

"I," Ranma said, his aura flaring before he dashed after his target.

_Wham!_ Kurumu screamed as she was bodyslammed in mid-flight, adding more pain and momentum to her tumble.

"Am," he continued hotly, stopping suddenly as Kurumu continued onward ahead of him.

_Crack!_ The blue-haired monster yelped as she slammed into a tree, and then glanced behind her fearfully as the full realization of how badly she was outmatched hit her.

"A **human**!" Ranma snapped, holding his palms opposite each other in front of him as a crackling sphere of blue energy formed there. After a few seconds, the orb reached the general volume of a basketball. "Looks like it's one step closer to extinction for you guys. G'night."

Kurumu whimpered, holding her battered arms in front of her to try and protect her face.

"Ranma, stop it!" Tsukune suddenly said, startling both combatants.

Ranma blinked in surprise as the younger boy interposed himself between him and his target with his arms spread out.

"What're you doing? Get outta here! What if she stabs you from behind, or takes you hostage or something?" Ranma complained, still holding the sphere of ki in his hands as it throbbed and crackled dangerously.

Tsukune stood firm. "I don't think she'd do that, Ranma. Please, that's enough."

"I wasn't really gonna kill her or anything," the pigtailed man protested as he finally let the energy blast in his hands dissipate. "And she DID try to kill you and Moka."

Tsukune sighed in relief at seeing his more capable friend calm down, and then glanced over his shoulder at the dumbstruck succubus. "I think she's learned her lesson. Thank you for saving us, Ranma."

"Yeah, thanks," Moka chirped, walking up next to Tsukune and turning toward the defeated succubus. "Kurumu... I'm sorry for your situation, but this isn't the way to solve your problems! Violence is never the answer!"

"AH-EM!" Ranma said loudly, glaring at Moka with his arms crossed over his chest.

The vampiress rolled her eyes. "Well, it's never the **best** answer, anyway."

"If you have any better ideas for how I was supposed to keep your head attached to your neck, you should've brought 'em up earlier," Ranma grumbled. "Meh. I'm getting hungry. Tsukune, Moka, you want some food?"

"Yeah, I do," Tsukune said hesitantly, still glancing over at Kurumu. "Kurumu, are you going to be okay on your own?"

The succubus' eyes sparkled as she stared up at the boy, and she nodded dreamily. "I'm... I'm fine. He didn't hit me all that hard..."

Ranma scratched his head in confusion, wondering why this situation looked so familiar to him.

"I can't say I understand the burden you're under," Tsukune said softly, "but... I forgive you for what you've done. I hope that we can get along from now on."

"Oh, thank you! I'm very sorry! I won't do it again, I promise!" Kurumu insisted, clasping her hands together as she gazed up at her hero.

Satisfied that the succubus wouldn't be causing any more trouble, Tsukune turned and walked back to his friends, slowing slightly as Ranma shook his head and Moka gazed at him with a fairly unreadable expression.

"What is it?" he asked in confusion, glancing between the two.

Ranma frowned. "I could be wrong... but I think you just got yourself engaged."

Tsukune blanched as he focused fully on Ranma. "Wh-What? What are you talking about?"

"You just forgave her for almost killing you and actually showed you cared about her being hurt," Ranma explained. "Where I come from, that's like a proposal without a ring."

"But... that's ridic-" the younger boy's protest was cut off as a sharp pain came from his neck, courtesy of two needle-like fangs seeking his jugular. "GAAAAAH! Moka, cut it out!"

"I'm sorry!" Moka apologized, though only after taking a long sip of blood, "but I've been really hungry since Ranma mentioned food!"

Ranma sweatdropped as Tsukune ran about in a panic, blood spurting from his neck. 'I feel guilty about it, but it's kind of nice seeing this happen to someone else for once. I'm glad I don't have to put up with any annoying monster girls chasing me.'

_Cracka-boom!_

Trying desperately to ignore the ominous bolt of lightning, Ranma quickly turned around and headed toward the cafeteria.

* * *

End Chapter 1

Note: Richard is a main character from the web comic Looking For Group. If you are not familiar with it, I gladly recommend it.  
If you need me to tell you where Jadeite's from, then you fail as an anime fan.

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

Kuno sniffed as he walked out of his math course, his bokken resting against his shoulder as he trudged down the hall.

Things had settled down considerably since Ranma was expelled from Furinkan, though in Kuno's mind, surprisingly, the changes had not been for the better.

Almost ninety percent of the school had submitted to the new haircut requirements set by the principal, as only those strong enough to fight off or consistently evade the Kuno patriarch could avoid them now that he wasn't mostly focused on carving off Ranma's precious pigtail. As usual, there was a massive obstacle course involved with the prize being the elimination of the school's haircut requirement, but somehow, despite the combined might of Akane and himself - Ukyo had taken the day off to try and find where her fiancee was now attending school - they had failed to secure the critical document that provided unquestioned exemption.

For some reason, the course had included copious numbers of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. Quite a brutal defense, and Kuno had the lacerations and second-degree burns to prove it.

The hentai horde had not started up again, as most of them figured that between Ranma - who wasn't TOTALLY out of the picture yet - Ryoga - who entered and left the picture seemingly at random - and Kuno himself to potentially exact revenge on anyone who actually managed to overcome the youngest Tendo, seeking a date with a slightly less cute and far less dangerous classmate was probably quite reasonable.

Worst of all, to Kuno at least, was that he no longer had Ranma nearby. Not only had the fiend escaped mortal justice at his hands by the much lesser punishment of mere expulsion, but he hadn't fully surrendered his influence as the betrothed of Akane Tendo, and had spirited away the pigtailed girl along with him!

The young kendoist grit his teeth. 'This will not be allowed, Saotome! No matter what obstacle I must overcome, no matter what foes I must face, know that there is no chance that you will ever escape my-'

"Excuse me, Mister Kuno?"

Tatewaki's mental rant was interrupted by a man in a professional suit standing in front of him, holding a thick folder.

"Hm? Can I help you, Sir?" Kuno asked, arms crossed before his chest.

"I'm an agent from the Ministry of Education of Japan," the man explained as an introduction, conspicuously omitting his name. "I've just come to inform you that your participation in our program has officially concluded, and as a result you no longer need to assault Ranma Saotome."

Kuno's demeanor changed instantly, and the kendoist very nearly fainted on the floor right there from relief. "Oh, thank Buddha, it's finally over!" he gasped, falling to his knees with a haunted expression. "Do you know the kind of things that man did to me? The doctors can't even tell the sutures of my skull from the cracks anymore!"

"Yes, I realize it's been hard for you, Mister Kuno. Your participation is nonetheless appreciated," the man droned. "Also, if you happen to see Mister Hibiki, can you tell him he's done too? We've been trying to send him notice for YEARS, but so much mail has piled up at the Hibiki homestead that the postal service doesn't even bother delivering there anymore."

"Of course, my fine sir, I will carry this burden unto the grave if need be," Tatewaki said, slipping back into his normal mode of speech. "Now if you may excuse me, I'm off to date with the fair Akane Tendo!"

"Yeah, sure. You go do that," the man said, turning away. 'Screwball.' 


	3. Sounds Like Love

"Hello, everybody!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly, waving. "Welcome to part one of the ongoing omake section: Guess Ranma's Species!"

"During this special extra session, we'll be gathering evidence about Ranma Saotome's abilities and trying to piece together exactly what he is!"

Shizuka put a finger to her lips warningly. "But it's important that he doesn't know about it! After all, he's one of the few students who actually follows the rule about not revealing his true form!"

The cat-like teacher gestured to the side, where Kurumu was seated next to her. "Today we're talking to Miss Kurono! What can you tell us about this mysterious student?"

Kurumu frowned as she crossed her arms under her breasts. "Well, I had him pegged as a vampire at first, but after seeing his and Moka's reaction to that guess, it's probably wrong..."

The succubus' brow creased as she closed her eyes, deep in thought. "Well... I'm gonna have to say..."

Her eyes snapped open. "Illithid."

Shizuka blinked. "A what, now?"

"He's a mind flayer. Or some kind of psychic creature, but my first guess is mind flayer," she said firmly. "That sphere of force he hit me with... it wasn't magic. I think it was pure willpower manifest. Which means psionics," Kurumu reasoned, wagging her finger. "That trick where he seems to move so fast that he's almost invisible has to be a mental trick too. So I'm definitely betting illithid."

"So you think Saotome is a squid-faced, brain-eating creature from another dimension?" Shizuka asked.

"Yup!" Kurumu said confidently, smiling as she nodded. Then she looked worried. "I hope he isn't protecting Tsukune just as a food supply..."

"Well, there you have it!" Shizuka said, turning away from the bluette. "Is Ranma a gray matter muncher? Stay tuned to find out!"

After saying that, a vein popped up on her head, and she turned back toward Kurumu. "Now, as for you..."

Kurumu blinked in surprise, wondering why the teacher looked annoyed (although the woman was still smiling). "What? What's wrong?"

"You didn't even last two days before you announced your true form to the entire school!" The cat-woman said, looming over the schoolgirl as a tail emerged from beneath her skirt and swayed irritably.

"Erk! B-But I... I needed to..." Kurumu started to sweat as she tried to think of a good reason for her blatant disregard for Youkai's number one rule. "I was declaring a challenge, and-"

"No excuses!" Shizuka said, yowling as she loomed over the younger girl. "Bathroom duty for a month! And not just the girl's either! You'll also clean the boy's and the 'others' bathrooms!"

"NOOOOOOO! Not the 'others'! Have mercy!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: Well, it's only chapter 2 and I've already created a new character. I didn't think I'd last that long!

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 2  
Sounds Like Love

* * *

"Who the hell is it that keeps howling at night, anyway? Who even does that?" Ranma grumbled as he fought off a yawn.

Tsukune chuckled nervously as he walked with Ranma and Moka to their homeroom class. "Maybe it's a werewolf or something? Or a hellhound?" He didn't look nearly as exhausted, as he had stayed behind and drifted off to sleep while Ranma had been out trying to find the source of the noise. "I'm surprised it bothered you, though. You seem like a heavy sleeper to me."

"Usually I am, but howling wolves bug me," the martial artist said, scratching the back of his head. "When I was on a training trip with my pop, we'd stop in wolf territory all the time, and sometimes they'd attack us at night or try to steal our food."

"What? Why wouldn't you just avoid them?" Moka asked, alarmed at the thought of being constantly attacked by wild animals.

"It was pretty good survival training," Ranma admitted. "Lemme tell ya: after the third time you get ambushed in your sleep by a wolf trying to bite your throat open, you learn to hit them first."

Tsukune and Moka blinked, failing to see the logic in that approach.

"They're a lot less dangerous on the defensive," Ranma continued. "Take out the big male, and the rest'll scatter." Then he groaned. "I couldn't find the jerk that was keeping me up last night, though. Took me longer to look for 'im than it did for him to get bored of howling and leave."

"If it is a werewolf, he should calm down in a few days at most," Moka said. "The bigger the moon is, the more it excites them, and there was a full moon last night, wasn't there?"

"I'd really prefer a solution that involves finding the creep and breaking his jaw," Ranma grumbled, causing Moka to roll her eyes and Tsukune to sweatdrop.

"Would you stop acting like a brute?" Moka huffed. "Why can't you be more sensitive, like Tsukune?"

"Bein' sensitive didn't keep you guys from being diced up into snack cubes yesterday," Ranma countered testily. "Hurting people did."

Moka seemed unmoved by his reminder that he had saved their lives. "Nobody likes a thug, you know."

"Hey, you're Saotome, right?"

The trio turned around as three other students from their class walked by, waving happily at the pigtailed boy. "Heard you downed one of them monstrels the other day, and then put down the succubus, too! Good job!"

"Bet that seductress put up a fight, too! She looked like a feisty one!"

Ranma shrugged. "Eh, not really. Then again, I kinda caught her by surprise."

"Keep it up, man! A monster like you could go far in a place like this!" The biggest one of the group said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Moka groaned at the barbarity of it all, while Ranma growled at being called a monster.

"I'm a human, dammit!" He protested.

"Yeah, sure, and I'm a fairy!" the larger man chuckled, jabbing a thumb at himself.

His companions went silent, staring up at him.

"Dude... you're a fairy?" the shortest of the group asked suspiciously.

"Well, it does explain his fashion sense," mumbled the other.

"It's called SARCASM, idjit! Let's go, already!"

As the trio moved on, Tsukune noted that Ranma was visibly restraining himself from attacking them, holding his wrist tightly as his hand clenched and unclenched into a fist.

"You know, I've meaning to ask... I can understand that you don't like being called a monster, but why would it make you so angry? This is a school for monsters, so it's only reasonable to assume that you're one too."

"It 'aint reasonable when I take every opportunity to tell 'em otherwise!" Ranma growled. "Besides, there's more to this than that."

"What do you mean?" Moka asked.

Ranma sighed irritably. "It's not so much that they think I'm a monster, it's that they WON'T BELIEVE I'M HUMAN! Every time I do anything impressive, they just snort and brush my protest off like a joke!"

"Well, your abilities ARE kind of inhuman," Tsukune said carefully.

"That's just it!" the pigtailed boy snapped, "do you know what I went through to GET these 'abilities'? I suffered for ten years trudging through the wilderness and pushing myself to the brink of death to get this good! I'm the best martial artist there is because I gave up my whole damn life for it! Countless hours of brutal training! Hundreds of agonizing fights! Rivals coming out of the woodwork trying to take me down!"

He grit his teeth angrily as he continued, causing his companions to wince at the wrathful energy. "But these idiots can't even COMPREHEND that! No, I can't be human, I'm too awesome to have actually SUFFERED for my art! If I'm this strong, it must be because I was born a **vampire** or something! What the hell? It pisses me off to have someone dismiss all my effort and training like that! Martial arts is my life!"

Tsukune winced slightly. He couldn't really sympathize with Ranma's feelings, as Tsukune didn't have anything to take particular pride in, but at least he now understood why the pigtailed boy took the accusations of monsterhood so personally.

Of course, Tsukune still thought Ranma was much better off with the monsters thinking he couldn't possibly be human, but he wasn't about to tell the older boy that.

Moka, surprisingly, was rather moved by the admission. "Oh. I... I had no idea it was so important to you."

"Damn straight," Ranma mumbled, finally starting forward again. "Beating Saizo's no big deal; I'm pretty sure at least half the people at this school could do it. That doesn't prove nothin'. Being **human** is the proof of my strength. It means I didn't have my power handed to me on a platter, I earned it with blood and sweat. Can Saizo or Kurumu say that?"

The conviction with which he spoke left his companions fairly stunned, unable to come up with anything to say that could impress after such a meaningful monologue.

"Hey, Saotome! Heard you're not a vampire!" Shouted a girl who had already reached the classroom. "You just cost me five thousand yen in the pool, you know!"

Tsukune sweatdropped as the older boy bristled. "Whether or not it's justified, you're going to have a real hard time if you fly into a rage every time someone calls you a monster."

"Can't... process... logic... Must... contain... fury..." Ranma growled out through clenched teeth.

"Let's hurry up before we're late," Moka said, sighing as she grabbed the boys' hands and pulled them along.

* * *

Such were the events that led up to Ranma's homeroom class, which naturally saw him lying on his desk unconscious within the first half-hour.

"Ranma? Ranma, wake up!" Tsukune whispered, poking the boy next to him with his pen to try and get his attention. He hadn't been **that** tired when they arrived, had he?

Seeing that his actions and the muffled mumbling from Ranma had attracted the attention of Miss Nekonome, Tsukune promptly sat up straight and resigned his friend to his deserved fate.

Shizuka frowned as she walked up to the obviously unconscious student, wondering if Ranma might be some sort of delinquent. Granted there were a lot of those in Youkai, given that the student body was composed of monsters, but she had fairly high hopes for the boy when he actually took his human disguise seriously. She estimated that at least three-fourths of the class had already revealed their true forms to their fellow students thus far just to show off their abilities, and it was nice to see that at least one student not only followed the rules, but actually took initiative by fully pretending he was a human.

However, that didn't change the fact that this same student was getting into fights, refused to wear a uniform, and was now even falling asleep in her class! Shizuka felt that if she didn't nip this in the bud right away, she'd lose a student that had real potential for furthering the cause of coexistence between the human and monster races.

"Alright, Mister Saotome. Time to get up!" she said sharply, tapping the boy's head with the wooden pointer she used for her lectures.

Ranma shifted his head to the other side and mumbled something about pandas getting kicked out of windows.

Her eyebrow twitched at the response, and then Shizuka raised the pointer into the air to "tap" him harder.

_Crack!_ Ranma's hand swung upward on instinct, snapping the tool in half before it could make contact, and startling his homeroom teacher badly enough that a distinctly feline tail suddenly sprouted from underneath her skirt, its fur standing on end.

"Meeyowr!"

Ranma's eyes bugged out of their sockets as he promptly collapsed backward into a heap, conscious but paralyzed with fear at the sudden, terrifying sound.

His heart still hammering in his chest, the pigtailed boy slowly turned his head to look up into the rather annoyed glare of Miss Nekonome.

"Having pleasant dreams, Mister Saotome? Maybe you find them more interesting than my lecture?" The cat-like instructor asked, her smiling twitching.

Ranma promptly twisted his body around so that he was crouching behind his chair, using it as a shield as he trembled in fear. "No! No, I'm sorry! I'll pay attention! Just, please, don't hurt me!"

Much of the class, including the teacher herself, looked quite surprised by the sudden and profound display of cowardice, and Tsukune and Moka gaped openly.

"Er... of course. Please pay attention from now on," Shizuka said slowly, turning away from the terrified teenager.

'What the heck was that about?' Tsukune thought, watching the older boy slip back into his seat. 'I always got the feeling Ranma didn't like Miss Nekonome, but to get a reaction like that out of him?'

Then his eyes widened. 'Wait! Ranma's an expert martial artist! Maybe he has some sort of special sense that tells him that Miss Nekonome is actually super-strong? Is she that dangerous?'

The mundane boy gulped nervously as his homeroom teacher began talking again, suddenly seeing the spritely and seemingly harmless woman in a new light.

Ranma's thoughts, of course, were not so coherent. 'CatcatcatCATcatcatsoundslikeacatcatCaTcat-dammit-catcatcatcatcat-knew she was one of **them**-catcatcatccccaaaaatttttcatcat-where the hell are those stupid spiders when you need them-catcatcatcat...'

The lecture of the day was interrupted again when the entrance to the classroom suddenly opened without warning or fanfare.

"Gah! It's Professor Richard!" One student screamed, immediately ducking under his desk as the robed figure stepped into the classroom.

Richard's eyes glanced over to the source of the shout, and he snorted. "What's with him? You'd think I'd frozen his girlfriend solid, smashed her into little pieces, and then used her to cool my ice chest."

"You DID!"

Richard nodded and turned toward the teacher. "Well now, since that mystery's solved, down to business. Do you have a moment, Miss Nekonome?"

Shizuka sweatdropped, and the hair on her head that looked suspiciously like ears flattened. "What do you want?"

"I have need of Saotome's services," the warlock said bluntly, pointing a clawed finger at the teenager in question. "There's a body in need of disposal. Well, not so much a 'body' as a... uh... well..."

Richard was silent for a few seconds as he rubbed his chin through his mask. "Let's just say you'll be needing a mop."

Ranma grunted, his casually fearless attitude resurfacing now that he was faced with someone who was merely homicidal and immensely powerful rather than feline. "Why should I have to help you during a different period? Get a different aide for your other classes!"

"I did," Richard explained patiently. "Unfortunately, that aide comprises a significant fraction of the total mass that I need removed. I'm not sure on exactly what fraction... that spell had a rather irregular blast, and I think some of the students managed to escape the room before the dimensional breach sealed itself."

Ranma looked only more annoyed by the explanation. "Nah. You didn't say the magic word."

"Evocatio frigus?" Richard guessed.

_Thud! Thud! Thud!_ Several students yelped in surprise as Ranma suddenly kicked his desk up in the air, barely blocking the three foot-long blades of gleaming, hardened ice that had been sailing toward his face.

Ranma slammed his desk back down into place, and then glared at the undead magus. "That wasn't what I meant," he growled.

"Well, can I have a hint?" Richard asked, looking annoyed. "Because my next guess is 'abracadabra,' and you do NOT want to see what that does."

Mumbling curses and threats under his breath, the pigtailed boy got up out of his desk and followed the warlock out of the room.

"Is everyone okay?" Shizuka asked as she looked around the room, taking stock of her students to make sure the casually destructive science teacher hadn't immolated somebody on his way out.

Everybody seemed fine physically, though that boy that had panicked at the sight of the warlock was still hiding under his desk, shaking.

Oddly enough, Tsukune Aono also seemed to be unreasonably nervous when she looked him over.

"Tsukune!" Moka whispered over to him, "What's wrong? You look terrified!"

Tsukune gulped. 'If a man like that teacher just annoys Ranma, what kind of terrible creature is Miss Nekonome to inspire such fear?'

The woman in question glanced at him curiously, and his face paled slightly as he suppressed a shudder. 'I'm going to have to be very careful around her from now on...'

* * *

"That was terrible," Ranma mumbled as he slumped into his seat, his face pale from keeping down the bile in his throat for so long. "I swear, the teachers here are worse than the students. And they're the ones that are supposed to teach us how to get by in the human world? Hmph."

Ranma was in his next class now, the cleanup having taken up the rest of his homeroom period. He didn't recall exactly what class it was, as he had never been here before and was too tired and disturbed to bother looking around and taking in the details of the room he was already in, never mind look over the details of his schedule.

"Maybe they have all the monsters who couldn't make it in the human world come back here where they don't have to hide themselves. The entire faculty is probably the rejects of this whole 'human-monster coexistence' thing." He muttered, staring up at the ceiling.

"Well! How rude!" an annoyed, feminine voice said from in front of him. "I'll have you know that I'm a MASTER of human disguise!"

Suppressing a groan, Ranma slowly tilted his head forward to take a look at who had spoken to him.

He was silent for a few moments as he took in the form standing proudly in front of his desk.

"Bullshit," he deadpanned.

The woman standing in front him was definitely an... **impressive** example of a human disguise. She had a gorgeous, voluptuous form with smooth, silky skin, plump, firm breasts, and an elegant face framed by long, wavy, dirty blond hair. She wore a perfectly complementary assortment of jewelry, expertly applied makeup that could only barely enhance her looks, and a bright red halter top dress that clung to her form.

But despite all that, she still had a pair of horns and a third eye in her forehead, so frankly, Ranma wasn't buying it.

"Ha! You have a lot of guts, giving me that attitude," the woman said, sliding closer to sit on Ranma's desk before crossing her legs.

The pigtailed boy looked supremely annoyed by this, although the woman, who Ranma supposed was his teacher, had firmly captured the attention of every other boy sitting in the room.

"Your human form is good, but so tacky!" she complained, dragging a well-manicured nail down the front of Ranma's shirt. "Not only do you come to class out of uniform, but you don't even have the decency to break school rules fashionably! Silks are SO last month! You could really stand some cologne too; you smell like blood and raw meat. And WHAT is with that pigtail?"

"HEY! You leave my hair out of this!" Ranma shouted, so annoyed by the onslaught of criticism that he forgot to insist that his humanity wasn't a disguise.

"Fine, have it your way," the teacher said, slipping away and sauntering up to the front of the classroom without further comment.

Ranma fumed for a few seconds before he calmed himself enough to seriously take stock of his surroundings. Not that there was much in the room to draw attention other than the teacher, but he found himself checking each of his classmates to place guesses as to their threat level.

Soon enough he turned around to check behind him, and the student behind him elicited a brief gasp as they made eye contact.

Ranma couldn't imagine why, as he'd never seen the girl sitting behind him before, but put it aside. She was pretty cute if not a bit gloomy-looking, with long, shining dark purple hair that was tucked behind her ear and shoulder on the right side, but spilled over her face on the left side, hiding her left eye. He couldn't get a good look at her exposed eye, as she was now facing straight down at her desk and trembling slightly, but he promptly pegged her as "not a threat" and moved on.

Within another minute, the woman at the front of the classroom cleared her throat, instantly seizing the attention of the few students that weren't already staring at her intently.

"Hello my lovely students, and welcome to your first day in government class!" she said, her sultry voice projecting perfectly from years of hard practice. "I'm your instructor, the Dark Liege!"

There was much blinking across the classroom.

"Wait, is that your actual name?" Somebody near the back asked, raising their hand.

"Uh, uh, uh!" the Dark Liege said, wagging her finger. "A girl's got to have some secrets, now!"

"But... your name?" A girl at the front asked, looking annoyed. "What are we supposed to call you?"

"Either 'my Liege' or 'Sensei' will be just fine!" she chirped. "Now, I know you boys want to know my measurements too, but class is now in session! So let's get right to it, shall we?"

Ten minutes later, Ranma was honestly wondering whether he was happy or frustrated with this new teacher.

'She's the most obviously demonic out of all my teachers, and even has that stupid name, and yet she teaches a completely ordinary topic in a completely ordinary way. No rants, no magic, no murder, nothing. What the hell? Is that third eye just for show?' Even when he'd picked a fight with the woman before class she just argued with him like any girl would and then backed off when he got upset.

That wasn't all, either; Ranma could feel an insane level of power coming from this woman, probably more sheer energy than everyone else in the classroom combined, including himself. The only individual he'd ever met with this level of power was Saffron, though he couldn't say for certain whose aura was bigger. How could someone so obviously demonic be so... normal?

Well, actually, the Dark Liege DID have a slightly unusual teaching style, in that she'd keep turning, bending, and leaning over to show off her rear and her cleavage while occasionally winking at the class, but Ranma found that more annoying than anything else, and it didn't change the issue of why he was being lectured on the general types of governmental authority by what may well have been a dark god.

"Now then, many dictators would set up their children to replace them once they died or retired, ensuring that all governmental power stayed within the royal family," the Dark Liege said, turning around to face the class. "Now, who can tell me what this is called?"

After a few seconds, nobody raised their hand, so the buxom teacher scanned the room before pointing in Ranma's direction. "You."

Ranma started to open his mouth, but was interrupted as the Dark Liege added to her statement.

"The girl behind the pigtailed brat. What's your name?"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head, but he fought down any retaliatory urges as he waited for the girl to speak.

"........." the girl stared straight down at her desk, her hands clenched tightly within her lap.

The Dark Liege blinked. She could've sworn she'd heard something very faint, but she couldn't make it out. "What was that? Speak up, please."

"........." the girl shuddered slightly as a soft noise came from her once again.

"I can't hear you," the Dark Liege said, sighing as she planted her fists on her hips. "Don't worry if you don't know the answer, just tell me your name."

The girl's shoulders slumped further. "........."

"She said her name's Kanade Kana," Ranma said suddenly.

Kana's head jerked up in surprise, and she stared in shock as she realized that Ranma was leaning way back on his chair, balancing it upon its back legs with his head mere inches away.

The Dark Liege frowned. "Well Miss Kanade, do you know what you call a dictatorship in which the dictator installs his children as the heirs to power?"

Kana promptly turned her head down again, swallowing nervously. "........."

Ranma slowly teetered forward, his chair falling back into its normal position. "She said it's called a dynasty."

"That's correct! Thank you!" the Dark Liege said brightly, jumping slightly and causing her breasts to jiggle. "But next time you should endeavor to answer for yourself. It can't be good to have to rely on the pigtailed brat to communicate."

_Bam!_ Ranma slammed a fist on his desk as he grit his teeth. "Stop calling me that!"

"Oh! What a brute!" the Dark Liege exclaimed in false hurt, holding her cheeks as she turned away. "To raise his voice at a lady like that! How COULD you?"

Ranma groaned as he felt several angry glares from other male students in the room. 'Man, I'm almost starting to miss Furinkan.'

* * *

"Ugh. What a pain," Ranma grumbled as he trudged out of the classroom, heading toward his locker. "Although honestly, she's probably the sanest out of all my teachers so far."

Of course, there weren't many who would say the Dark Liege was more stable and sane than Shizuka Nekonome, but in Ranma's book acting or looking like a cat was the height of madness.

Reaching his locker, he pulled it open and put away his government books. 'The Dark Moron did have a point, though; I don't smell too fresh right now. Better go hit the shower before my next class.'

"Oh, Ranma, there you are."

The pigtailed boy closed his locker to see Moka standing behind it, looking somewhat annoyed.

She wasn't looking at him, though, so it would seem that she was annoyed by something or someone else this time.

"What's up? Where's Tsukune?" Ranma asked. As far as he could tell, his roommate and the vampiress had become damn near inseparable in the short time since they'd met.

"Tsukune... has a bit of a problem right now," Moka mumbled uncomfortably.

Ranma straightened instantly. "Like a 'help a monster is trying to tear me limb from limb' kind of problem?"

"No, not quite..."

"Oh." Ranma frowned. "So then it's a 'help a monster is trying to tear off my clothes' kind of problem."

Moka blinked in surprise, and the both of them paused briefly as a panicked shout came from down the hall.

"Kurumu, knock it off!" Tsukune shouted, dashing away as the succubus chased after him.

"Come on! We're meant to be together! What are you running for?" Kurumu shouted after him brightly, holding a basket of cookies in her hands.

Moka sighed. "She was really impressed when Tsukune stopped you yesterday, I guess. She decided that Tsukune's her 'mate of fate' and won't leave him alone."

"Good," Ranma said.

Moka seemed surprised by this statement, so Ranma shrugged.

"I was afraid that the succubae would have some sort of stupid laws about mating with the one who beat them, or something. If she's after Tsukune, and not in the deadly way, then she's not my problem."

"But what about Tsukune?" Moka asked.

"What about him? He seems to be doin' fine to me." Ranma nudged his chin over in the direction of the other human, and Moka glanced over to see that Kurumu had finally cornered Tsukune under a stairwell and was now hand-feeding him her baked goods.

Ranma noted the vampiress frowning at the sight, and he rolled his eyes. "So you're just jealous, after all."

"I-I'm not jealous!" Moka stuttered, her face flushing as she whipped her head around to face the pigtailed boy. "I'm... just... just not sure that Kurumu isn't still trying to get revenge on me, is all!"

"Ugh," Ranma made a disgusted noise at the thought of him being dragged into the girls' catfight. "Look, whaddya want ME to do about it? I can't-eh?"

He stopped talking as he felt something tug on his shirt from behind, and then turned to see Kana Kanade standing behind him while looking away so as to avoid any eye contact. "Eh? Did you want something?"

"........." Moka raised an eyebrow as she heard a very soft, gentle sound come from the girl's mouth. Even though her hearing was generally better than a human's due to her vampire heritage, she still wasn't able to make out what the stranger had said.

Apparently, Ranma managed to understand it, though. "It's fine. I don't know why you're so quiet, but I sit close enough to cover for ya. My name's Saotome Ranma, by the way."

"And I'm Akashiya Moka," Moka said, moving closer to the girl.

"I am Kanade Kana," the girl said softly, Moka's ears just barely able to make out the words. The girl's voice was hesitant and scratchy, as if she was trying to speak with the very minimal amount of disturbance to her throat and tongue.

"Do you two know each other?" Moka asked Ranma.

"She sits behind me in government class. Seems she can't talk loud enough for the teacher to hear her," Ranma explained, shrugging.

Moka raised an eyebrow at that, wondering what kind of monster the girl was such that she was almost, but not quite, mute.

Kana glanced over to Ranma, quickly turning her head down the instant their eyes met. "I was... wondering... Saotome..."

"Call me Ranma," the pigtailed boy said, wondering why the girl seemed to shudder at the request.

"R-Right... Ranma... I was... wondering..." her voice seemed to get even smaller, if it was possible, and both Ranma and Moka leaned in to hear her. "... What kind... of... monster are you?"

Moka winced at the question as Ranma started to look annoyed. 'I should head this off right away, before Ranma has a chance to create a mess.' "It's against school rules to reveal your identity, isn't it?"

"Don't care," Ranma said instantly, causing Moka to groan. "I am a human. Pay attention. Hyoo-man. Homo sapien and all that scientific jazz. Okay?"

Before Kana had time to visibly react to the revelation another student passed by them, idly raising a fist to his mouth. "_Cough!_Bullshit_Cough!_"

Ranma glared at the boy's back, and then balled his hands into fists. "Oh yeah? Answer me this, then! If I'm not a human, what am I?"

"Vampire!" Shouted a girl behind Moka, much to the vampire's annoyance.

"Ghoul!" Shouted a boy behind the previous spectator.

"I vote troll!"

"No way, gotta be a devil!"

"Blood fiend!"

"Werewolf!"

"He's a witch! Burn him!"

"Can guys even BE witches?"

"I second vampire!"

"Incubus? He's sexy enough."

"Cerebrus!"

"Guys, guys, you're all TOTALLY wrong!" Said Kurumu, suddenly pushing through the ring of enthusiastic students with her arm hooked around Tsukune's.

Grinning, she pointed haughtily at Ranma. "You gotta think outside the box, people! He's no ordinary monster! This guy has to be a _mind flayer_!"

A hushed silence descended upon the crowd, and then, almost at once, the students that had been enthusiastically guessing at Ranma's species grimaced in disgust.

"EEEEUUUGH..." wincing in fear and revulsion, the crowd started to disperse, leaving Ranma alone with Moka, Kana, Kurumu, and Tsukune.

Ranma had his head down as his body trembled in barely-contained fury. "It is only the fact that I don't know what a 'mind flayer' is that keeps me from harming you, Kurumu," he said darkly.

"Heh heh heh," the succubus chuckled nervously, holding Tsukune more closely.

Then Kana leaned closer to the pigtailed boy. "........." She frowned. "........." Nodding slightly, she concluded "........."

Kurumu threw her pride to the wind and stood fully behind Tsukune as Ranma turned a deadly cold glare on her. "S-So I was wrong? Well, it was a good guess, right?"

Tsukune sighed as he saw that Ranma had started glowing again. "Ranma, please, don't. I'm just going to get in your way again, anyhow."

Ranma's aura faded, and he eventually turned around. "I'm gonna go wash." He deadpanned, stalking off toward the building exit.

Moka, Kurumu, and Tsukune watched him go, each one feeling a great deal of relief that the situation had been resolved without any casualites.

Unless one counted Ranma's dignity, anyway.

"Tsukune! You saved me again!" Kurumu purred, rubbing her head into the crook of his neck. "You're so brave and noble!"

Tsukune sweatdropped, well aware that he only stood up to Ranma so easily because he was almost certain the pigtailed boy would never hurt him. "Okay, fine. Can we go eat lunch now?"

Moka brightened immediately. "Ooh! Can I have some of your blood, Tsukune? Please?"

"Moka, wait! No, don't-OW!"

Kurumu was about to complain loudly about Moka's behavior when she suddenly glanced around, looking surprised. "Hey, where'd that other girl go?"

* * *

After lunch, Tsukune was heading off to his math class, carefully scanning his schedule and campus map to find the right room.

"Okay, I think it's right down here..." the freshman mumbled, starting to turn the corner.

"Mister Tsukune? Could you come here, please? Under the stairs?"

Tsukune jerked to a stop, almost paralyzed as the sudden request penetrated his ears. The voice was soft and lilting, with a musical quality to them that defied description, and he found himself momentarily stunned by the sound.

Turning around once he recovered, Tsukune found that there was nobody nearby, and the closest students were ignoring him, walking by to get to their own classes.

'Weird, it seemed like that sound was whispered right into my ear, but there's nobody around,' he thought, puzzled. 'What did it say? Under the stairs?'

Looking over to the nearest stairwell, he could see a bit of shadow from a figure standing underneath them, and he felt a chill crawl down his back. 'Should I go? It could be some monster trying to ambush me out of sight!'

"Who... Who is it?" Tsukune called out nervously, taking a few steps closer to the stairs.

No further sound came to him, and eventually he gulped and creeped over toward the shadows. He figured that if this was a trap, the monsters setting it almost certainly had the means to kill him anyway without an ambush. Considering that he was already on guard, and that Ranma should arrive for class at any moment to effect a rescue if necessary, these were probably the safest conditions he could reasonably ask for.

As he slowly walked toward the stairs, the figure shifted slightly so that it wasn't totally obscured in shadow, and Tsukune blinked. It was that girl that Ranma and Moka had been talking to, Kana something-or-other. What did she want with him?

Stopping a few feet away, Tsukune rubbed the back of his head nervously, noting that the girl had her head tilted to the side so that she was avoiding eye contact with him. "Yes? What is it?"

Kana gestured for him to come closer, and he did so reluctantly, creeping forward until she put her hand down.

"How do... you know... Ranma?"

Tsukune blinked. "Ranma? We met when the semester started. We're roommates too, actually. Why? Are you a friend of his?"

She seemed to start at the mention that they shared a dorm room, and ignored Tsukune's counter-question. "What is... your room number?"

Maybe it was because Kana seemed perfectly harmless. Perhaps he was feeling a bit too much relief that he hadn't walked into an ambush. Either that, or Tsukune's naive, trusting nature simply seized the reigns of his frontal lobe.

But for whatever reason, Tsukune didn't even hesitate before he rattled off his room and building number to the subdued-looking girl, even going so far as to describe its location in the building. "-near the end of the hall; there's only one other other room between our dorm and the east wall. All on the first floor."

Kana nodded, a small smile spreading on her lips. "Thank you..." she whispered.

"No problem, no problem," the human said slowly, rubbing the back of his head. "So... why did you need to know that, again?"

"Hey, Tsukune!"

The boy jumped slightly as Ranma's voice came from behind him, and he quickly turned to face his friend and roommate. "Oh, hi Ranma! You made it in time!"

"Yup. Not that I'm in any kind of hurry to learn **math**," Ranma put and impressive amount of disgust into the word as he passed by Tsukune. "Come on, let's get this over with. Hopefully our teacher isn't some sort of whackjob or slutty demon goddess."

"Whackjob or... **what**?" Tsukune asked, forgetting about Kana completely as he followed the older boy.

"You'd have to see it to believe it, man... though she's better than the others, I guess." He shuddered at the memory of Miss Nekonome glaring down at him.

The two continued talking as they entered the classroom, neither one noticing as a figure stepped out from under the stairs and then scurried away.

* * *

Tsukune took a sip of water and then placed the half-empty glass on his nightstand before he climbed into bed, smiling as he pulled up the covers. 'My third day at Youkai Academy, and I'm still alive and well. I didn't think I'd be doing this well at all.' He sighed pleasantly. 'Between Moka and Ranma... and I guess Kurumu isn't so bad either... this could actually shape up to be a great semester for me!'

"Good night, Ranma," he mumbled, snuggling deeper into his pillow.

Ranma completed his two hundredth push-up before he finally got off the floor and slipped into his bed. 'My third day at Youkai Academy, and I STILL haven't been able to convince anybody here that I'm human. And then there's my classes.' He groaned weakly. 'Between Richard and Jadeite... and Miss Nekonome most of all... this is shaping up to be a really lousy semester for me.'

"G'night Tsukune," he mumbled, rolling over.

It was only minutes until the pair were fully asleep, the moonlight shining through the fog into their bedroom window.

* * *

"Hee hee hee hee! Won't he be surprised tomorrow morning?" Kurumu said to herself as she snuck out of her dorm room, a rather large, pink envelope in her hand that smelled strongly of perfume and was sealed with a large heart-shaped sticker.

"Or maybe I won't even have to wait that long," Kurumu mumbled, her eyes shining as she crept down the halls. "Maybe he's still up! Just think..."

"Oh, Kurumu, hello! What brings you by this late in the evening?" Dream Tsukune asked, his teeth shining brightly as he smiled down at the young succubus.

"Oh Tsukune, I wanted to give you this!" Dream Kurumu said bashfully, holding out the envelope while blushing demurely. "Every time I see you my heart beats so fast; it's hard to explain my feelings to you when you're staring into my eyes! This letter should explain the full depths of my love!"

Dream Tsukune took the envelope, opened it carefully and then unfolded the letter, looking it over quickly, but carefully.

"Kurumu, I... I had no idea you felt so strongly about me," Dream Tsukune said, his voice rich and manly as he gazed into Dream Kurumu's eyes. "But remind me: you said your race is endangered, is it not?"

Dream Kurumu nodded, a melodramatic tear sliding down her cheek. "It's true! I still haven't figured out why, but I assure you, it's true!"

Dream Tsukune's expression was grim and serious as he gently took the succubus into his arms. "Then I have no choice but to aid you in propagating immediately for as long as my surprisingly muscular and powerful body can endure."

"Oh, Tsukune!" Dream Kurumu gasped, flushing deeply as her chosen mate carried her into the room.

There was a pause of several seconds, and then Dream Ranma suddenly came flying out the door to slam painfully against the wall opposite his dorm room. The door to said room promptly closed behind him.

Dream Ranma quickly scrambled to his feet, and then pointed to the door. "Just for the record, **only in your dreams** could TSUKUNE Judo-throw ME across a room! Got it?"

Kurumu giggled. "Ha! I only wish that fantasy had gone on long enough for me to see Dream Moka's face!"

"Dream me? What are you talking about?" Moka asked.

Kurumu froze in place, and her head slowly and rigidly turned to look behind her, where Moka was standing in a set of pajamas patterned with tiny bats.

"M-M-Moka! What are you doing up at this hour?" the succubus asked nervously, turning as she held the envelope behind her.

"I was going to bed when I heard evil laughter, so I came out to check," Moka explained, her eyes narrowing. "What are YOU doing up? And what's that envelope for?"

"It's... nothing. Nothing at all," Kurumu said slowly, backing away toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Moka asked suspiciously. "Isn't your room the other way?"

"I'm just going... to the kitchens. To... make cookies," Kurumu explained, still walking backwards away from her rival.

Moka watched closely as the succubus continued backing away toward the door to the room in question, and her eyes narrowed as Kurumu then passed right by it.

Kurumu, guessing that jig had been up for some time, quickly turned and dashed toward the stairs at full speed, sticking her tongue out at Moka on the way. "Bidaaah!"

"Hey! No! Get back here!" Moka shouted, taking off after the other girl.

* * *

"Zzzzzz... uh..." Tsukune shifted uncomfortably in his sleep, his face contorting as a soft, gentle hum started to fill the room.

"Zzzzhhhrgh..." Ranma rolled over, twitching as the hum slowly rose in pitch, and then started moving into words as a song began.

_A special world... for you and me.  
A special bond... one cannot see._

Moving sluggishly and clumsily, Tsukune stumbled out of bed and onto his feet, his eyelids only half open.

Ranma followed a moment later, moving just as awkwardly, and ended up catching his foot on Tsukune's nightstand.

_Thud! Sploosh!_

Ranma got back to her feet, her dazed state seemingly unaffected by the cool water dripping down her face and chest.

_It wraps us up... in its cocoon.  
And holds us fiercely... in its womb._

The voice was soft, yet penetrating, with a ringing, bell-like quality that felt pleasurable even through the haze of unconsciousness that currently affected the pair of roommates.

Lurching forward like a zombie, Tsukune reached the door and grappled with the knob uncertainly until he fumbled it open, and then stumbled out into the hall.

* * *

"It's none of your business, Moka! Butt out!" Kurumu shouted as she dashed down the stairs, her letter pressed tightly into her chest. While she knew that Moka probably would leave her alone if she'd revealed that her intent was a simple love letter, she didn't want to reveal her actions to the vampiress so that Moka could prepare some act of affection to counter hers.

"What are you going to do to Tsukune, Kurumu?" Moka demanded as she raced up after her rival, barely managing to keep the blue-haired girl in sight.

Although their dorms were co-ed, they were segregated by floor so that boys and girls didn't have to share living space and were at least nominally separated from each other, so Tsukune and Ranma lived on the first floor, while both Moka and Kurumu's rooms were on the fourth.

"Ah! There he is!" Kurumu shouted in surprise, her expression brightening considerably as she saw the object of her affection shuffle out of his dorm room. "Oh, and there's Ranwha?"

Kurumu promptly fell over forward in shock upon seeing that the figure she had mistaken for Ranma was in fact much shorter, possessed bright red hair, and was quite obviously FEMALE. She was only wearing a tank-top and boxer shorts, so there could be very little confusion about that.

"What... How... Who..." the succubus stuttered uselessly as both Tsukune and the stranger turned toward the main entrance, apparently ignoring her.

"Tsukune! Are you..." Moka blinked in surprise at the scene, seeing Kurumu twitching on the floor while Tsukune and some girl she had never seen before were exiting the building. "What? What's going on here?"

"Th-That girl!" Kurumu cried, scrambling to her feet as her face contorted in rage. "She came out of Tsukune's room!"

"What? But... where are they going? And where's Ranma?" she asked, watching helplessly as Tsukune and the redhead pushed through the door leading outside.

"Who cares about Ranma?" Kurumu demanded angrily. "Who's that redheaded slut?"

"I don't know... I've never seen her before," Moka said hesitantly, obviously confused. She had stuck pretty closely to Tsukune ever since he had arrived, so it seemed strange that she had never met someone who was close enough to Tsukune to be invited into his room.

Of course... there were other ways to get into Tsukune's room that didn't involve close bonds of friendship, and Moka frowned as she considered some of them. "Let's follow them!"

"Way ahead of you!" Kurumu growled as she dashed out the exit.

"Kurumu! Wait for me!"

Once the girls were outside, they saw that Tsukune and the redhead had separated, and were slowly stumbling about blindly among the trees and gravestones, seemingly without direction.

"What's wrong with them?" Moka asked nervously. "Tsukune should have noticed us in the hall. Is he in some sort of trance?"

"How should I know?" Kurumu snapped, trying to decide which target to go after: her beloved or his (presumed) defiler.

"Well, you are kind of the expert on hypnosis out of the two of us," Moka said.

Kurumu winced. "Touche. Anyway, this doesn't SEEM like any charm spell I've seen; my allure and most tricks like it only affect the conscious mind, so that people act like they normally do, but follow a command. The way they're acting... it almost seems as if they're still asleep."

Moka digested this for a moment, and then gasped as she noticed that the girl was lurching away again into the trees. "I think something's happening! Look, the girl is leaving!"

"And good riddance," Kurumu said icily, noting that Tsukune was standing in place, wobbling from side to side. "As long as Tsukune isn't going anywhere."

Although Moka could sympathize with the succubus, she considered that whatever had Tsukune and the stranger in a trance was probably separate from whatever situation had arisen to bring the redhead into the boys' room, and could potentially be very dangerous. While she had no reason to trust this girl or risk anything for her, Moka wasn't willing to simply leave her to a mysterious fate over a twinge of jealousy.

Thus as Kurumu dove for Tsukune, Moka decided to go see if she could wake up the stranger.

Such coherent thoughts, unfortunately, were obliterated as she got closer to the girl.

At first, the sound that reached her as she approached the redhead was just on the edge of her ability to perceive, and hardly took much of her attention.

As she got closer to her objective, however, the noise became louder and more persistent, and she found herself more and more distracted by the gentle, musical hum as it eventually turned into words that completely stole away her attention.

_It's fingers spread... like fine spun gold.  
Gently nestling us... to the fold._

The sound was beautiful, easily the single most beautiful and majestic thing she had ever heard, and Moka turned away from the redhead as curiosity urged her to find the source of the wonderful melody.

_Like silken thread... it holds us fast.  
Bonds like this... are meant to last._

Before she even knew what she was doing, Moka had walked into the darkness beyond the trees, out of sight of Kurumu, following the stumbling redhead.

Kurumu didn't notice, because she was busy shaking Tsukune to try and snap the boy out of it.

"Tsukune! Wake up! What's wrong with you?" the succubus demanded, watching the boy's head loll about senselessly. "All right then, I didn't want to have to do this..." She reared a hand back, keeping her palm flat.

"Sorry!" Squeaking out an apology ahead of time, Kurumu slapped Tsukune in the cheek hard, throwing the boy's face to the side and leaving a stinging red handprint.

"Ack! Wh-What? Where am I?" Tsukune asked groggily, shaking his head as he tried to clear it.

A few details came down the line as vitally important once he noticed them.

For one thing, he was outside in his pajamas.

For another, Kurumu was holding him by his shoulders, and looked rather anxious.

Finally, his cheek stung like crazy.

"What did I just do?" he asked weakly.

"That's what I want to know!" Kurumu said, her relief at Tsukune's recovery washed away by fresh anger at the redheaded girl. "Who is she!"

Tsukune blinked. "Who is who?" He asked, honestly puzzled. Looking around, he couldn't see anybody around but the two of them.

"You know who I mean! That redhead with the bust that's ALMOST as magnificent as mine!" Kurumu clarified, her eyes glowing slightly. "She came out of YOUR ROOM with you, Tsukune!"

Tsukune winced as the pieces fell into place. "Oh. Her. That's... uh... complicated."

Kurumu did not look appeased. "Complicated? What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of elaborating, Tsukune glanced around again. "Wait... if she came out with me... however that happened... where is she now?"

Kurumu looked supremely annoyed as she turned to look behind her. "She should be over... huh? She's gone?" the succubus frowned. "I thought Moka was trying to stop her. Wait, then where's Moka?"

It didn't help Kurumu's mood any when Tsukune's eyes bugged out at the mention of the vampiress. "What? Moka's out here too? Where?"

Kurumu growled slightly that they seemed to be moving away from the topic of the redhead, but relented and let go of Tsukune. "I think they were heading in this direction..."

"Then let's find them! They could be in trouble!" Tsukune exclaimed, racing off into the night with Kurumu following reluctantly behind.

* * *

"And though at times... a thread may break.

A new one forms... in its wake.  
To bind us closer... and keep us strong.  
In a special world... where we belong."  
(And that was "A Special World" by Sheelagh Lennon. What? You didn't really think I wrote **love poems**, did you?)

Moka peeked out from behind a tree, staring at the source of the wonderful song in surprise and awe. 'Is that... Is that really Kana?'

Of course, it looked exactly like Kana Kanade, save the large, white, feathery wings on the girl's back, but Moka simply had an impossible time of connecting the hauntingly beautiful singing voice with the incredibly timid girl who could barely speak.

She was seated on a stone pillar that had been set up in a clearing, wearing a lovely yet conservative soft blue gown that fluttered elegantly in the cool breeze.

There were several other pillars set up in the clearing of irregular height, each one composed of several separate rock cylinders stacked awkwardly on top of each other. It gave the entire space the look of some sort of arena, actually, and Moka idly wondered who took the time to construct such pointless arrangements.

"Oh! There you are!" Kana's voice rang out like an orchestra of bells, and Moka shifted her attention over to see that the redheaded girl had finally caught up, having stopped at the edge of the clearing where she was still hidden from the moonlight by the shadows of the trees.

The purple-haired girl spread her wings before she hopped off of the column, slowly gliding to the ground in the middle of the clearing before she walked over toward the mystery girl, a blush on her face.

"I didn't really want us to meet like this, but I really couldn't think of what else to do," Kana admitted as she slowly walked across the ground, her wings folding up tightly behind her. "I'm sorry... I can't even talk to people normally because I get so nervous... but... if you're unconscious, then I thought that maybe I could overcome my shyness."

Moka listened intently as the winged girl spoke, her heart going out to the young monster. 'So that's why she can't speak normally? Chronic shyness? I see... although that doesn't explain anything about what's going on here.'

Kana stopped a few feet from the redhead, clasping her hands in front of her chest. "You're just so... different from me. So strong, so confident... and then you helped me... becoming my voice to the world without asking anything in return."

She stepped forward again, gently taking hold of the pigtailed girl's shoulders and staring deeply into her eyes.

"When I came to this school, I had already decided that I wanted a boyfriend... someone to experience love with, who I could tell all my secrets to. I wish... I hope that someday, maybe, we can be like that... but for now, I think... just a kiss?"

Moka gasped lightly, mesmerized by the scene as Kana slowly brought her face closer to the other girl's.

And then Kana halted, the one eye that wasn't covered by her hair blinking. "Who the hell are you?"

_Crash!_ Moka promptly facefaulted, kicking up a cloud of dust as she hit the ground.

Kana whirled around at the noise, and her visible eye widened as she saw Moka picking herself up. "Bu... Yo... Wh..." her ability to speak coherently seemed to crumble as she stared at the other girl, her face flushing deeper and deeper.

"Kana? What's going on here?" Moka asked cautiously, unsure what to make of the situation. Judging by her earlier confession, she had mistaken the redheaded girl for Ranma in the dark, which effectively meant that she had been trying to draw the pigtailed boy out into the night in order to make out with him.

Moka wouldn't have normally interfered with something like that, even if she didn't think it was right for Kana to be doing such things while Ranma was unconscious and hypnotized. However, the girl had dragged Tsukune out of bed as well with her mischief, so the vampiress decided that a stern lecture was in order.

"........" Kana's mouth moved to protest, but her voice had evidently diminished to its usual nearly unintelligible mumble, and Moka wasn't nearly close enough to hear.

"I don't think I completely understand what you were doing, but you have to stop!" Moka said firmly. "Drawing people out in the middle of the night to seduce them is just-"

"She was doing WHAT?"

Kana and Moka both jumped in surprise as Kurumu's voice came from the edge of the clearing, and they turned to see the enraged succubus sprouting her wings and tail as Tsukune looked on, confused.

"........." Kana said desperately, obviously to no avail.

"It was her song that drew them out like this," Moka explained, only slightly concerned that Kurumu seemed so upset. She didn't consider what the situation looked like to her rival, or what conclusion she might reach with only partial information.

A vein popped up Kurumu's head as her nails lengthened. "You... You... How dare you?" she cried, taking to the air with a mighty flap of her wings. "I go to all the trouble to pursue Tsukune without using my allure to trick him, and you think you can swoop in and steal him with your own powers?"

Tsukune blinked. "What? Really?" The explanation was certainly news to him. He had spent all of two minutes around the timid girl, and she was already trying to seduce him?

"........." Kana explained uselessly.

Moka, for her part, facepalmed as she realized what was happening. "No, wait, Kuru-"

"Forget it, hussy!" Kurumu shouted as she began her dive, ignoring Moka. "There's no way I'm going to lose to a siren!"

* * *

"Hello everybody! Today we're going to learn all about sirens!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly, a sketch of Kana's winged form on the blackboard.

"Hailing from Greece, the siren is a creature featured in their ancient lore as seductresses and troublemakers. They are most famous for their voice, which could sing with such potent beauty that sailors would shipwreck themselves trying to get to them."

Shizuka turned to another picture on the blackboard, this one showing a diagram of a larynx, though it differed substantially from a human's. "The siren's voice box contains more than eight times as many muscles and folds as a human's, and is far more sensitive! This gives a siren unbelievably fine control over their voice. Things that would take a human long practice to master, such as throwing one's voice, imitating voices, and ventriloquism, a siren can do instinctively! Coupled with their naturally wonderful voices, this makes them excellent stage performers!"

Shizuka's tail twitched. "In battle, their abilities are more ambiguous. Rumor has it that some sirens have learned to release sonic bursts that vibrate at perfect frequencies to funnel the air into powerful kinetic projectiles. Other stories mention special songs that can seriously damage a person's brain, or even tear bodies apart with sonic vibrations!"

She shook her head. "Really though, these are just silly rumors, and shouldn't be taken too seriously. By and large sirens are harmless and fun-loving creatures, and you shouldn't expect too much of them in combat."

* * *

"EEEEEYAAAAAAAAAH!" Kana screamed, her eye clenched shut as a visible distortion rippled through the air around her mouth.

_Whoomph!_ Kurumu's eyes widened as something slammed into her in the air, and she found herself reeling through the air a second later. 'What the hell was that?' she thought, her ears ringing as she managed to stabilize herself before she crashed. 'That hurt almost as badly as Ranma's energy blast... but I couldn't see a thing!'

"Kurumu, are you all right?" Tsukune asked from where he was standing next to the pigtailed girl to check her for injuries. The girl herself was apparently still in a dazed state, her eyes flickering sporadically as she swayed back and forth on her feet.

"I'm fine! This is nothing!" the succubus growled, flying in an arc around her opponent to get around her.

Moka was about to try once again to correct the misunderstanding when she noticed that Kana was trembling in anger, her delicate hands clenched into fists as she grit her teeth. "K... Kana?"

"You... YOU..." The siren's voice could be heard all too clearly now, although it had changed completely from melodic and pleasant to a hellish growl that boomed across the clearing.

Kurumu, having never heard the girl actually speak, stopped short, hovering in the air in surprise.

"I wasn't trying to hurt anybody," Kana snarled, her words causing the loose dirt around her to ripple ominously as she spoke, "I know it was selfish of me, but none of you had any business getting in my way..."

"None of my business? What's that supposed to-" Kurumu started to speak, only to be noisily interrupted.

"Shut it!" Kana boomed, the branches of the trees nearby shaking unsteadily from the shock wave. Then the young siren spread her wings wide, shooting straight up into the air. "I've had enough of this! Just GO AWAY!"

Kurumu flapped her wings hard to match her target's altitude. "YOU go away! And don't ev... wait, what are you doing?"

Kurumu's sense of dread was matched by Moka and Tsukune as they watched Kana take an especially deep breath of air.

'Attack or find cover, attack or find cover... screw this! Hiding!' Kurumu thought, zipping around and diving for some trees.

And then, sticking her index and middle fingers between her lips, Kana whistled.

"Fweeeeeeeeeeeee..."

Tsukune was pleasantly surprised when nothing happened immediately, such as the ground shaking or an intense pain in his head, and turned back to the redheaded girl standing next to him.

"Ranma, wake up already! Ugh... damn. All right, I didn't want to have to do this..." the boy mumbled, rearing his hand back to slap his roommate across the face.

_Whack!_ Tsukune fell backward as the unconscious redhead lazily belted him across the jaw, apparently out of reflex. "Owww..."

It was about at this point that Kana's whistle spontaneously changed pitch, and Tsukune's eyes widened.

_BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!_ Tsukune, Moka, and Kurumu all gaped as the ground beneath Kana blew upwards like the detonation of a small bomb before a ring of similar explosions burst out around it, and then another larger ring around that, the explosions showing no signs of stopping as the shock wave continued to expand.

Tsukune quickly got up and grabbed Ranma's arm, pulling the both of them behind one of the stone pillars that decorated the area. "Damn it, why am I the one saving you?" He shouted as the wave of detonations came closer, causing the rock pillar to shudder ominously.

_BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! KABOOM!!_ The final ring of explosions were deafening in their sheer volume, and would have knocked Moka and Kurumu to their knees if they weren't already on the ground trying to protect themselves from the trees that had become uprooted and were toppling over from the shock wave.

"Augh... uhn..." Moka cracked her eyes open to find herself pinned under the branches of a collapsed trees, and she grunted as she tried to wriggle her way free and check on the others.

Kurumu was in better shape, having braced herself better and having razor-sharp nails to slice through the branches around her. Within seconds she was free to take to the air again, largely unscathed by Kana's latest attack.

She promptly did so, and the succubus grimaced at the state of the ground as she gained altitude. The earth had been rent apart, scarred by irregular divots, craters, and unearthed rocks that had split apart at the surface. Much of the dead forest that had surrounded the clearing had been uprooted, the trees toppled and shattered. The large stone pillars hadn't fared any better, and every one of them was now merely a pile of cracked boulders.

Kana herself was huffing wearily as she hovered over the destruction, taking out a bottle of water.

_Glug! Glug!_ After gulping down a few mouthfuls, she tilted her head back and gargled for a few seconds before spitting the water out onto the ground.

"Ahhh... now, I-" _Bwock!_ The siren was violently interrupted as Kurumu brought her fists down on Kana's head from behind, sending the other temptress into a nosedive.

Kana spread out her wings desperately, managing to catch enough air to turn right-side up and transform a crash landing into a rough landing.

"Gah!" Hitting the ground hard on one leg, the siren stumbled and twisted it badly, causing pain to shoot up her body.

"That was an impressive trick, if not a bit useless!" Kurumu taunted from high above. "Now give it up before I really have to hurt you!"

Kana clenched her hands into fists again as she flapped her wings, trying to take pressure off of her injured leg. "YOU give up!" she shouted, punctuating the command with a short sonic burst that slammed into Kurumu and had the other girl floundering in the air for a few seconds. "You won't get away with this! I don't like being pushed around!"

Kurumu managed to stabilize herself before she lost altitude, gritting her teeth. 'Okay, I can't see her attacks coming, so I'm just going to have to move whenever she starts shouting. Geez, for such a harmless-looking brat, she sure puts up a fight when she gets mad.'

"Tsukune! Oh no!"

Kurumu and Kana both looked down toward Moka, wondering what the vampiress was so upset about.

"What's wrong? Where's Tsukune?" Kurumu asked, a definite edge to her voice.

"I think he was behind that pillar!" Moka shouted, pushing away another tree that was in her way.

Kurumu looked over to where Moka was pointing, and she paled when she saw the motionless pile of boulders.

"You idiot!" Kurumu snapped at Kana. "You're the one who brought Tsukune here in the first place! What if you seriously hurt him?"

"Don't lecture me!" Kana boomed. "You started this fight, not me! Besides, most monsters could shrug off that much weight without a problem!"

"Well, what if he can't?" Kurumu demanded. "I don't even know what kind of monster he is!"

"I..."

Kurumu, Kana, and Moka all snapped their heads about toward the rock pile as they heard a voice emerge in a loud, clipped tone.

"Am not..."

_Crack! Crunch!_ The rocks began to shift as the pile of rubble start to rise, with one of the larger boulders sliding up above the others.

"A MONSTER!" Ranma shouted, the rocks around her falling away as she hefted a boulder into the air nearly as big as she was. Although she seemed healthy enough to lift improbably large objects, she was also obviously injured, and had blood running down the side of her head.

Tsukune, for his part, looked much better as he slowly peeked his head up from the rock pile. 'Thank God he woke up when that boulder hit him... I thought we were goners...'

"I don't know what's going on here, but I am REALLY pissed off right now!" Ranma growled, her body trembling with rage and exertion. 'I wasn't in a great mood when I went to sleep, and suddenly I wake up in the middle of half-wasted battlefield, as a girl, wet, in my underwear, and buried in rocks. Somebody is going to pay for this, and the currency will be BROKEN BONES.' In her anger, combined with the relative darkness and the fact that girl currently had wings, she didn't even recognize Kana as someone she knew.

Kurumu could see that the new girl obviously wasn't at her most stable at the moment, but decided that her most pressing questions of the night couldn't wait for an explanation of what Kana had been doing and why. "Hey, Red!"

Ranma shifted slightly to glare at the succubus. "WHAT?"

"Who the hell are you, and why did you come out Tsukune's room?" Kurumu demanded. "You'd better not have been up to anything funny with him!"

"Whoever you are, you'd better not be trying to get in my way too!" Kana growled, her voice causing the occasional ripple among the dirt below. "Tell me where Ranma is or you'll regret it!"

Ranma was silent for several seconds as the two flying girls glared down at her. "Tsukune, I need help."

The other human blinked. "With the boulder?"

"Yes. I can't decide which of them to throw it at," the redhead said.

Kurumu suddenly turned toward Kana as she finally considered the siren's demand. "Wait a minute... Ranma? You're not after Tsukune?"

"Of course not!" Kana snapped, getting even more enraged at the thought of her being harassed and injured due to a misunderstanding. "What would I want with that cowardly, scrawny loser?"

A vein popped up on Kurumu's head. "Cowardly? How dare you call him that? You think I'll let you get away with that?"

"You're not going to have a choice after I bury you, you top-heavy, bat-winged skank!"

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"

Back on the ground, Tsukune's eye twitched as the two winged girls yelled back and forth at each other. "Well... I wouldn't want you to hurt Kurumu..."

Ranma turned slightly as a blue aura encompassed her. "White wings it is, then. Heave!"

Kana glanced over as the considerable chunk of rock careened toward her through the air, and then she rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

The air in front of the siren's mouth rippled outward as Kana's screech slowly rose in pitch, and the boulder suddenly cracked in mid-air as a wall of force slammed into it before crumbling apart and losing momentum rapidly.

As easy to counter as the rock had been, however, Kana found herself utterly unprepared for the small orb of bright blue energy that had apparently followed it on the exact same trajectory, spearing straight through the loose debris of the boulder and then smashing into the surprised siren's abdomen.

Kana gasped as she was blasted back through the sky, the air having been knocked completely out of her.

The force of the attack was not enough to completely destabilize her flight, but before she could gather her wits she felt something seize her from behind, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist as the other was clamped firmly over her mouth.

"Yeah, I feel your pain, sister. Those little blue things sting, don't they?" Kurumu asked as she flapped her wings hard, bringing the two of them up higher. "I thought that was Ranma's trick, but whatever. Maybe they're the same type of monster."

"Mmmph! Hrrm!" Kana struggled as best she could within the other girl's grasp, but found that the succubus was quite a bit stronger than she was.

"Hm, not much to you once we shut you up, huh?" Kurumu said conversationally as she leveled off into a glide. "Now, where to let you off... ooh! A pond!"

"Mrrrgh! Mnph!"

"Oh, stop your whining," Kurumu demanded, adusting the tilt of her wings and also shifting her arm to better prevent Kana's wings from catching the air, "you're lucky, you know; since you weren't after Tsukune, I'm going to let you off with a warning and a swim! Now don't let me catch you using your songs on him again!"

With that, Kurumu suddenly released the other girl about ten feet over the pond before kicking off the siren's back, sending herself back into the air and her opponent down into the water.

"GYAAA-" _SPLOOSH!_ Kana's final attempt to use her sonics was silenced by the impact with the water, and Kurumu quickly circled around in the air to go back to her friends, ignoring the booming shouts and wild thrashing of white wings as she flew out of earshot.

* * *

"Geez, what's all this about, anyway? What am I doing out here?" Ranma asked wearily, having just seen Kurumu fly off with the siren to finish her.

"I'm not completely sure myself..." Tsukune admitted, climbing up out of the rubble that surrounded the two roommates.

"Tsukune! Are you okay?" Moka asked, rushing up to them.

Tsukune smiled wearily. "Yeah, I'm all right. Kana's attack didn't get me directly, and Ranma took the brunt of the rocks." He looked over at the shocked-looking redhead. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"Wait... that was KANA?" Ranma demanded.

"Wait... this is RANMA?" Moka said at nearly the same time.

Tsukune looked from Ranma to Moka, each one of them looking confused and a bit scared. Seeing how Ranma's query was the simplest to answer, he turned toward the pigtailed girl. "Uh, yeah. That was Kana. Turns out she's a siren, I guess. I don't know any of the details, but apparently she drew us out her with her song and then Kurumu tried to stop her."

That wasn't TOTALLY accurate, but Tsukune was doing his best to be diplomatic. Ranma didn't need to know that Kurumu picked a fight in a moment of jealous fury when it had all just been an inconvenient misunderstanding.

"Aw, crud. I didn't even recognize her," Ranma mumbled, rubbing the back of her head irritably as Moka stared incredulously at her. A distant splashing noise caused her to grimace. "I better go and make sure she's all right."

"But... wait... Ranma? How..." Moka stuttered in confusion, trying to reconcile the fact that the redheaded girl and the brash martial artist were the same person. 'A boy crossdressing as a girl? No, that's ridiculous, where did his extra height go? But how could she have made herself look so much like a boy? Her chest is at least as big as Kurumu's!'

Before Ranma could leave, Kurumu crested the trees that surrounded the (now larger) clearing, slowing herself such that she was hovering over the others.

"Well, now that the songbird's gone, would SOMEBODY like to introduce me to our new friend?" the succubus asked, only slightly mollified by the fact that the pigtailed girl had helped her put down Kana quickly.

Tsukune blinked as Ranma clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Tsukune, buddy, this is all you. Bye!" Before the other human could manage a protest, the redhead vanished in cloud of dust, having dashed off into the trees.

Moka and Kurumu glanced after Ranma for a few seconds, and then turned their heads back toward Tsukune expectantly.

Tsukune groaned. "Okay, well... how to start... Either of you ever heard of Jusenkyou?"

* * *

Kana coughed miserably as she leaned against a tree, her body shaking with cold.

'Well, this was a perfect disaster,' the siren thought gloomily, glancing over her shoulder at her drenched, muddy wings. 'It's so cold out here... my body feels numb... well, except for my leg.'

She wanted to be angrier about the turn of events, but her rage had been quenched the moment the succubus was out of earshot.

'Why did things have to end up like this? I wasn't trying to cause any harm. I just wanted to have my first kiss! I would've sent them right back afterward! I... I just wanted to...'

She sniffled a bit as she conjured the fantasy from her mind that had brought her out here in the first place; her, elegant and pristine upon the stone pillars gazing down at Ranma, his muscular, perfectly chiseled, and conveniently shirtless form almost glowing in the moonlight as their lips met tenderly, fireworks popping magnificently in the background.

Okay, so maybe her expectations had been a little dramatic, but the situation had spiraled too far out of control too fast, and she hardly felt that the crime of drawing Tsukune outside in his sleep warranted her being beaten, humiliated, soaked, and then left all alone to limp back to her room.

She let her body slump down into a sitting position, her wings sweeping forward to cover her. "What a crummy place this school is... maybe big brother was right."

"He was? Did he go here too?"

Kana barely restrained a squeak of surprise as a feminine voice came from behind her, and she snapped her head around to narrow her one visible eye at the redheaded girl from before.

"Hey," Ranma said, looking embarrassed as she walked closer to the siren. "I'm sorry about what happened back there. None of us really knew what was going on, and things got a little out of hand."

Kana turned away, ducking her head deeper underneath her wings before she spoke. "........."

"Yeah, I know. Kurumu's a pain, but she's not all bad," Ranma replied, standing right over the winged girl as she spoke.

Kana bristled from the sudden proximity, staring anxiously at the redhead.

"What? You know I can't hear you unless I'm right next to you," Ranma said, leaning against the tree with her elbow as she looked down on the siren. "Anyway, you don't look like you're in very good shape right now, so why don't I help you back to your room?"

Kana looked up at the redhead strangely, noting the dried blood that was flaking on the side of her head and on parts of her arms. "Who... are you? You almost talk... like we know each other."

Ranma tilted her head to one side as she considered this, and then shrugged as she held out her hand. "Let's make a trade, then."

Kana raised her visible eyebrow as she took the redhead's hand and allowed herself to be pulled up. "A trade?"

"Yeah. A secret for a secret," Ranma said. "I'll even throw in a piggy-back ride back to your room. Whaddya say?"

Kana frowned, wondering what secret she had that the other girl would want to know. She had a few of them, to be sure, and some of them were rather dangerous. "If you agree to go first, it's a deal."

"'Kay," Ranma said casually, backing away and planting her hands on her hips. "Then lemme introduce myself: I'm Ranma Saotome, heir of the Anything-Goes school of martial arts and freshman here at Youkai Academy, as annoying as that is. Oh, and I'm actually a guy."

Kana's eye widened at the admission, and her voice spontaneously returned to her. "Then you... you ARE a rakshasa after all? I was right!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head. "I don't know what that is, but NO, I'm not. It's a shapeshifting curse I picked up in China, okay? I'm actually a human."

Kana's face twisted into an unreadable expression. "You threw a boulder at me." She deadpanned.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that," the redhead apologized again, turning around and crouching. "C'mon, we need to keep you off that leg."

"I could just fly back, you know," Kana mumbled as she approached the other girl.

"If it were that easy, you'd be gone already," Ranma surmised. "Not that I know much about flyin', but I'm guessing it's a lot harder if your wings are muddy and waterlogged, right? Let's get going."

Kana flushed slightly as she climbed up on the pigtailed girl's back, and Ranma looped her arms under Kana's legs. "I'm sorry about my wings; I know they're rather heavy, but if I don't clean them before I take human form, I could seriously damage them."

"What, are you kiddin me? You hardly weigh anything!" Ranma said honestly, surprised by how light the siren was. "Now, where are we going?"

Kana pointed off toward the main campus. "My room is in a smaller dorm attached to the school on the east side. It's a bit of walk for-"

"No problem. Let's go!" Ranma said, quickly dashing off in the indicated direction at a speed that startled her passenger.

Kana promptly wrapped her arms around the redhead's neck for extra stability as the trees rushed by around her at a speed that most people considered an all-out sprint. She knew she shouldn't have been amazed by Ranma's strength after seeing the girl heft a rock as big as she was, but it was still startling to see such feats from someone who still appeared human. While most monsters were stronger than humans, even when taking human form, most human forms severely restricted a monster's powers, with the case of very near-human monsters like herself being the exception. What kind of monster was Ranma after all to be able to access so much power without transforming? She found herself wishing she could trade another secret with the boy-turned-girl.

'Speaking of which...' "So, didn't you want to know a secret or something? Or are you still thinking about what to ask me?"

"Naw, I know what to ask you," Ranma said as she hopped over some thorny bushes. "What's with your voice?"

Kana blinked. "Huh?"

"You're talking normally now, and you actually have a really pretty voice," Ranma explained, "so why do you usually talk like you've got laryngitis or something?"

Kana brushed off the compliment about her voice; to a siren, such a comment was about as flattering as telling a human he had very opposable thumbs. "That's all you want to know?"

"Yeah. I don't mind telling people what you're saying, but it'd be easier on you if you didn't have to rely on your friends just to talk," Ranma said.

There were several seconds of dead silence, and Ranma began to worry that she had said something to upset the other girl.

Finally, Kana spoke. "You... think of me as a friend?" She asked timidly.

"Well, five minutes ago we were ready to rip each other apart, which is pretty typical of MY friendships. Don't know about yours," Ranma explained wryly. "Anyway, if you don't wanna tell me, it's fine. I was just curious."

"No, it's... that's not it," Kana mumbled. "I have a lot of trouble with... strangers, you see. I'm... well, most people say I'm just really shy... and I guess I am, but really, being around people I don't know very well just makes me nervous. When I'm nervous I lose my voice... I guess because my voice usually attracts a lot of attention otherwise. I think it's subconscious..."

"Really? You're that scared of strangers?" Ranma asked.

Kana frowned. "Kind of... I didn't meet a lot of people growing up outside of my family, and my older brother practically raised me himself. He's the one who taught me to use my voice in combat."

"Oh, cool!" Ranma said, not seeing the grimace from the girl on her back. "Was your brother really good?"

"Big Brother was... very strong. And made a lot of strong enemies, too. Most of the people I met outside of my family were after him, and usually tried to hurt me. I guess that's why I learned to avoid attention."

"And why you learned to scream at things so that they explode?" Ranma asked, remembering the boulder.

"Ah... yes. That too, I suppose," Kana mumbled, feeling a bit depressed about her earlier burst of temper. Not only had she escalated a mostly harmless misunderstanding and attacked someone who apparently considered her a friend, but hadn't even made an impressive showing after unleashing her powers.

"Honestly, I don't really like hurting people at all," the siren explained, hugging herself tighter to Ranma as they approached the main building. "But I tend to get angry easily, and keep getting drawn into fights. I'm hopeless..."

"Seriously? You think that's a problem?" Ranma asked, chuckling slightly as she slowed down. "Kana, I've only recently started meeting people who AREN'T like that. It's fine. I mean, at least you make an effort to avoid trouble, right?"

"Well... yes, I suppose," Kana said uncertainly.

"Then don't worry about it. You're doin' the best you can," Ranma said as she finally stopped in front of Kana's dorm complex. "Although there is one thing that worries me..."

Kana blinked as she was gently lowered to the ground. "What's that?"

"If I hadn't interfered..." Ranma began hesitantly, "what would've happened to Kurumu?"

"I would have blasted her into the ground and then used a sonic shock wave to put her to sleep for the night," Kana responded immediately, not really thinking about how her response might be received. "That bimbo's no match for me in a fair fight."

Ranma nodded grimly, and then gave the other girl a thumbs-up. "Cool. Next time I'll wait."

Kana blinked in surprise, and then the siren giggled at the response.

Ranma found herself struck dumb by the noise, which sounded like a chorus of bells and sent a pleasant tingle throughout her entire body.

After a few seconds Kana finished laughing, and she smiled softly at the redhead. "Thank you for helping me home, Ranma. Hopefully next time we won't be interrupted like that."

Ranma blinked in confusion. "Interrupted? Whaddya mean? Nobody interrupted us," she said. As far as Ranma could recall, nobody had bothered them for the entire trip from the pond to the dorms.

Kana didn't answer however, smiling mysteriously as she stepped into the dorm building.

* * *

"Well maybe now I can finally get some sleep," Ranma mumbled to herself as she trudged back to the room she shared with Tsukune. "Seriously, tonight the wolf decides to take a break, and something else just steps right in to make sure I'm troubled enough to feel right at home. Sheesh."

The pigtailed boy-turned-girl reached his door and twisted the knob. "At least it's all over now."

_Splash!_

Ranma stared blankly at Kurumu and Moka as hot water dripped from his shirt.

The two girls seemed slightly shocked at the sight in front of them, even though they obviously knew what to expect.

"It's... It's true..." Moka mumbled, holding the now-empty thermos close to her chest. "Wow... I've never seen an actual curse before."

"How do we know he's actually a boy now, though? It could be a glamour, or a partial transformation," Kurumu said skeptically.

Ranma's eyebrow twitched.

"Well, how do we make sure?" Moka asked. Personally she was already convinced, if only because she trusted Tsukune fully and Tsukune fully trusted Ranma, but was curious to see if the succubus could actually confirm the curse's effects beyond doubt.

"Simple!" Kurumu declared boldly.

Then she grabbed Ranma's boxers and pulled them down.

A vein popped up on Ranma's head as his eyebrow twitched again.

Moka's face was almost a solid red as she and Kurumu stared at the evidence of Ranma's gender. "That's... uh... wow... I'm pretty sure he's a man," the vampiress squeaked.

"Yeah, well..." Kurumu's face was flushed as well, although her expression was far more determined than scandalized, "we'll need to observe much more closely to-"

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" Ranma roared, and the girls almost stumbled over themselves in their rush to get through the doorway and out of the martial artist's path.

Without so much as a glance behind him, Ranma pulled up his underwear, stepped into his dorm room, and then slammed the door shut hard enough to force Moka and Kurumu to wince.

"I don't know WHAT his problem is. You'd think he'd be proud to show off something like that," Kurumu mumbled.

Moka sweatdropped. "Let's just go to bed."

* * *

The next day saw Ranma pushing a large block of ice through the halls of Youkai Academy while wearing rubber gloves to prevent the water runoff from activating his curse.

While everyone who saw him couldn't help but gape at the scene at first, those students that were curious enough to observe more closely could see that there was a boy trapped within the miniature glacier.

Those students promptly sighed, mumbled, "Richard," and then walked off.

"Now I know that old maniac is just making work for me," Ranma grumbled. "Entombing someone in ice instead of killing them? And then he wants me to defrost him? Feh."

It wasn't long before the pigtailed boy spotted a familiar curtain of purple hair, and he smiled as an idea occurred to him.

"Hey! Kana! Over here!" Ranma called out.

Kana, who had been walking the other way and hadn't even seen him, jumped in surprise at the sudden call. ""

'Oi. She even whispers when she shouts in surprise. That's some hardcore shyness,' Ranma thought. "Hey Kana, could you help me out with this?"

The siren looked at him in confusion before walking over to the pigtailed boy, idly glancing around her at the other students the whole time. "What is it?" She asked once Ranma was close enough to hear.

"I need to bust this sap out of the ice. Preferably before Professor Richard has time to light the rest of the class on fire," the martial artist explained. "I figure one good shout and you can break him out, right?"

Kana flushed. "But my voice there are so many people around"

Ranma frowned, and then scratched his head. "Well, I'd like to just break the ice myself, but I'm afraid I might split him in half along with the block if I try. You're sure you can't do it?"

Kana sighed despondently, mentally cursing her weakness at something so meager as being around strangers. It was nothing but a little ice, hardly an effort for her voice to shatter, but the suffocating nervousness prevented-

"I'd owe you one if you could help," Ranma offered, only slightly alarmed when the abnormally timid girl suddenly snapped her head up.

"Owe me one what?" Kana asked carefully. Ranma noted that she was still whispering, but she sounded like she was using her normal voice on a very low volume, rather than the usual hoarse, scratchy whisper when others were around.

"Uh well, whatever you want, I guess. Some kinda favor, you know?" the pigtailed boy said, feeling a slight chill that he assumed was from the ice block next to him.

"DEAL," Kana boomed, startling Ranma and several other students that were passing by.

_Crack! Crack!_ The ice block started to vibrate rapidly as thin cracks started running up and down the formation.

Kana smiled at Ranma as she spoke again. "Don't forget, now." With each musical syllable the ice trembled again, and when she ended the sentence the ice block finally shattered completely, showering the floor with toothpick-sized crystals.

'Weird. She sure got over her nervousness in a hurry,' Ranma thought, turning toward the defrosted and confused young man below him. "Hey, you all right? If so, you'd better get back to class."

"Wh-What? Are you crazy? I'm not going back there!" the boy proclaimed as he staggered to his feet. "He'll kill me!"

"If the teacher wanted to kill you, he'd have done it the first time," Ranma explained. "Come on, now. If you don't come back, then I'm the one who gets in trouble."

"Not my problem, man! This is my life on the line, here!" the young man protested.

Ranma frowned, and then shrugged. "Well, all right though you know, he automatically gives passing lab grades to students that survive a direct hit from one of his spells."

Richard's most recent victim was silent for several seconds. "Physical Science is a required course, isn't it?" "Yeap."

"I hate general ed," the boy growled, hunching his back in defeat as he trudged toward the classroom.

Kana raised her eyebrow. ""

"Of course I was lying," Ranma said, shrugging. "Although Professor Richard DOES tend to favor people that survive his attacks, I think. That's how I ended up as his aide, anyway."

The pigtailed boy turned a grin toward Kana. "Anyhow, it's too bad you have a hard time using that voice of yours. You can really do some amazing stuff with it."

Kana felt her heart swell slightly at the thought that someone like Ranma, a monster who could evidently throw boulders with no trouble and emit energy blasts at will, thought that her own powers were impressive.

"Obviously you can shoot sonic blasts and sing and stuff, but can you do anything else with it?" Ranma asked.

Kana hesitated for a moment, and then turned sharply to the side as two familiar figures emerged from the hall behind her.

"Tsukune, come on! I baked these cookies for us to eat together!" Kurumu said, pouting adorably as she tugged on her would-be lover's arm.

Tsukune winced slightly as he tried his best to reject the succubus gently. "I really have to get to class, Kurumu. Can't I eat them later?"

"Oh, come on! You can be a LITTLE late, can't you?" Kurumu begged, tugging harder on his arm. "They won't kill you for it."

Of course, the level of strength that Kurumu considered "just less than gentle" was significantly more than Tsukune was used to, and he quickly found himself being dragged away by the succubus. "B-But, Kurumu, what if they DO? I've heard stories!"

Kurumu opened her mouth to protest. "Fine, then. Go on and leave, you vampire-loving masochist."

Tsukune and Kurumu's eyes went wide at the unexpected comment.

"Wait what?" Tsukune asked.

"I I didn't er" Kurumu fumbled about for a moment before her voice came to her again - and again without conscious effort on her part, strangely enough. "Why is it that you'd rather have the blood sucked out of you by that vampire tramp than spend time with me, huh? Do you enjoy having holes punched in your neck? Is that what I have to do to get you to like me?"

Kurumu was bigsweating and gaping like a fish as Tsukune slipped his arm from her grasp. "I I have to get to class," he said quickly, scurrying away before the succubus could gather her wits.

"But I didn't say how did" Kurumu twitched as she slowly turned around, wondering how some of her darker thoughts on Tsukune and Moka's relationship had escaped from her mouth without permission or any effort on her part.

Ranma stared expressionlessly at the scene as Kana smirked.

"That is TERRIFYING," the pigtailed boy said with complete honesty. Just thinking about the sort of havoc someone could cause in his life if they could imitate his voice and then throw it so easily sent a chill down his spine. He had enough trouble saying the wrong thing at the wrong time as it was.

"Just a little prank to pay her back for last night," the siren whispered. "I still can't believe she thought I was trying to **seduce** that boy."

Ranma scratched his head. "Yeah, about that you know, you never did tell me what you were doing last night in the first place. I mean, how did me and Tsukune get-"

"Shouldn't you get back to class?" Kana interrupted quickly.

"Oh! Shoot! You're right! Thanks!" Ranma said quickly, turning around and dashing away to get back to his science class.

Kana sighed in relief and then turned around, her smile returning as she walked off to her own class. 'Any favor I want, hmm? I'm going to have to put that promise to good use!'

* * *

End Chapter 2

Note: The Dark Liege is a character from Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom. As a manga series, I like it a lot. Mostly because Kazuma is my favorite kind of protagonist: an entirely human level of power and fighting ability who kicks ass by staying calm and outsmarting his opponent (at least at first, anyway).

Extra!

"So you can even charm people with your song?" Kurumu asked as she, Moka, and Ranma all clustered around the siren girl.

Kana frowned slightly. "It's not really a charm it doesn't use magic or anything like that."

"Really? How can you do things like make people come to you, then?" Moka asked curiously.

"Certain variations and patterns of sound waves can actually activate and influence certain parts of the brain," Kana explained hesitantly. "With instruction and a lot of practice, you can put people to sleep, temporarily paralyze them, get them to move while unconscious, or just bombard them with pleasure."

She paused. "There's even a certain song that causes the brain to shut down completely, killing the victim. Although I don't know it," she added quickly.

"That pleasure one sounds kind of cool. What's that like?" Ranma asked.

Kana looked like she was about to explain it, when she hesitated and then shrugged. "Well, since it's you"

"Since it's me? What do you" Ranma trailed off as the siren girl emitted a dull, barely perceptible hum, and immediately felt a strange, tingly sensation envelop his body.

Moka and Kurumu observed with rapt attention as Kana hummed a series of low notes in Ranma's direction, causing the pigtailed boy to shudder slightly and start to breathe rapidly.

"Uhn! H-Hey, wait" Ranma mumbled weakly as Kana's voice started to rise, and then he quickly covered his crotch with his hands, eliciting raised eyebrows from the two spectators.

"Hhnnnnnnnnnnuuuuuuhnnnnnuuuuu" Kana's voice dipped lower again, and then built even faster, causing Ranma to flinch.

"Hold it! I c-can't-gyuh!" the martial artist's body convulsed, and he promptly whipped his head back and forth. "Gotta go! Bathroom! Now!" He shouted, immediately dashing toward the nearest facilities with his hands still over his nether regions.

Moka and Kurumu stared after Ranma with wide eyes and reddened cheeks as Kana took a deep breath, a smug smile on her face.

"Did Did you just give him a **sound**job?" Kurumu asked in reluctant awe.

Kana snorted. "Sirens were seducing skilled sailors into shipwrecking themselves long before your kind even learned to force yourselves on men in their dreams," she taunted. "Be thankful we're not after the same boy, succubus." 


	4. Eight Legged Freaks

"And welcome everybody to the next session of guessing Ranma's species!" Shizuka Nekonome cheered as she bounced about energetically.

"Today we'll discuss the pigtailed beast with his physical science teacher, Professor Richard!" the cat-like instructor said, gesturing to the undead warlock sitting next to her silently.

Richard remained silent for several seconds, and Shizuka's excited demeanor slowly wilted as it seemed like her guest wasn't going to speak.

Finally, Richard glared at Shizuka and coughed into his fist meaningfully.

Shizuka sighed as she realized what it was that the warlock wanted. "Sorry. Professor Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Emperor of the Black, Master of the Bones, Lord of the Undead, etc. etc."

Richard raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that all? You didn't even mention the Union. Also, I'm the Lord of the Dance, now."

"Does it really matter?" the homeroom teacher complained, her cheery mood thoroughly wrecked.

"I believe your contract is up for renegotiation next year, is it not?"

"Just get on with it!" Shizuka yowled.

Richard snorted. "Fine. But you can kiss your tenure goodbye." He then shifted into a thoughtful pose with his hands clasped over one knee. "If I had to guess at Saotome's species, I'd place him as a spider-person, actually. Probably some kind of jumper species."

"A spider monster? Why?" Shizuka asked, her ears twitching.

"Two reasons, really. One, he adheres quite well to the ceiling when he wants to. Secondly, his agility and senses seem to mirror a spider's abilities, at least insofar as Marvel Comics is concerned. In addition, he has a rather proud, yet stubbornly **indifferent** bearing that reminds me of the spider. The spider nests freely and carelessly where it wishes, often in the abode of large, dangerous creatures that consider it a pest. The way Saotome continues to act as my aide with grudging resignation yet persists in defying and resisting me reminds me of the noble arachnid."

"Really?" Shizuka said, looking a bit doubtful about the comparison.

"... Well, it's mostly the ceiling thing," Richard admitted. "Though he does seem to get along well with lesser spiders; I think I heard him say he was training them as guards or something."

"Fascinating," Shizuka said, "now go away."

Turning on her heel, the cat-like teacher grinned as Richard slunk away. "Another chapter, another bold guess! What will events reveal to us? Stay tuned!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: Funny story. That last chapter? With the OC? Totally thought she was unique. I haven't read the second series yet, and I hadn't heard of Sun. Halfway through the chapter someone tells me that Kana happens to be a lot like a DIFFERENT siren from later on in the series. How's that for irony? Oh well!

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**,_ Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 3  
Eight Legged Freaks

* * *

Ranma considered himself, above all other things, to be adaptable. If one asked him what his best trait was, they could get any one of dozens of answers, ranging from "all of them" to "how incredibly awesome I am," but if one actually sat down with Ranma and got him to take the question seriously, he'd mention how he was able to eventually overcome any obstacle or acclimate to any conditions.

There was really no other explanation for his life. Despite his general distaste for his curse, he'd learned to use it to his advantage when he could and manage the fallout on the many occasions in which it screwed him over. Soon he was content enough with his condition that he didn't even pursue a cure unless it practically fell into his lap.

Other individuals might have gone crazy with the assortment of violently jealous women fighting over them, or the even more jealous rivals fighting desperately for the girls' affections. At the very least, they would have been spurred to resolve the situation in some way, either to relieve themselves of the constant hardship or to finally conclude the brutal, overdramatic tug-of-war over their affections.

Ranma took it all in stride, rarely acting, and constantly reacting. No matter what anyone threw at him, he would beat it or just get used to it. No matter how difficult his situation, he bent but he would not break.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true; there was one, and only one, creature that was capable of snapping Ranma's near-impenetrable psyche. The dreaded housecat was a terrifying and lazy creature, evil-minded and adorable with a sadistic penchant for inflicting pain and lapping up attention. Ranma well knew the dangers of the beast, not that anyone else ever listened to him, and went to great lengths to avoid the creatures.

Which was why he found listing every nation's capital he could think of while standing right next to a big, woman-shaped one so disconcerting.

"Ranma, is it just me or is your handwriting getting worse and worse even as we speak?" Miss Nekonome asked, cocking her head to one side.

Ranma flinched, causing another shaky line of Katakana to mutate into a haphazard slash of chalk. He really wished his homeroom teacher wouldn't use his first name. He much preferred Hinako's polite, professional tone to Nekonome's friendlier one. He also preferred Hinako's penchant for sucking the life force out of people to Nekonome's habit of styling her hair in the shape of cat ears.

Moka sighed as she sat back in her chair, giving up on reading the chaotic scribbling on the board. "It's not just you, Sensei."

There was a great deal of chuckling throughout the class, and a gloom began to hang over Ranma's head. "S-Sorry. I th-think I know a f-few more..."

Shizuka raised an eyebrow as she watched Ranma write on the board nervously, beads of sweat rolling down his head. "Now you're just writing 'cat' over and over. Why don't you have a seat, Ranma? I think that's enough."

"Th-Thank you," Ranma stammered, quickly moving away from his homeroom teacher and lurching toward his seat in an awkward half-dash that almost had him tripping over his own feet.

Many of the other students felt the urge to snicker at the sight, although few gave in to the temptation. Even as they enjoyed the sight of one of the more arrogant and formidable students making a fool of himself, a nagging thought in the back of their minds made them wonder: why exactly did Ranma Saotome, someone who traded barbs with the Dark Liege and occasionally traded energy bolts with Jadeite and Richard, quake at the sight of the adorable and friendly homeroom teacher, anyway?

There were theories, of course. Some thought that Miss Nekonome had some juicy blackmail material on the pigtailed boy; many ventured that she was the only one that knew Ranma's true species, and that it was such a horrifying secret that the mere threat of revelation was enough to keep him in line. Many others thought that perhaps Miss Nekonome wasn't as harmless as she seemed, and that Ranma had picked a fight with her that he dearly regretted.

There was a third camp as well that ventured that Ranma might have some sort of bizarre phobia that applied to Shizuka and not the numerous actual threats that he happily provoked, but nobody took them seriously. What would the phobia be, a fear of petite middle-aged women? Ridiculous.

"All right everyone, pay attention now!" Shizuka requested, clapping her hands together. "Now that we're getting into the swing of things this semester, it's time for you freshman to find clubs to join!"

There were a few confused glances at this, so she elaborated.

"All students are required to join at least one club over the course of their instruction to give extra practice at maintaining your human form, interacting with others, and performing activities common in the human world! It also wouldn't hurt to have a few extracurriculars for your university applications!"

'Monster college, huh? That must be a riot,' Ranma thought, 'Who knew not killing people was a higher education goal?'

"Make sure to check out my newspaper club as well, everyone!" Shizuka said excitedly. "Class dismissed!"

* * *

"Clubs, huh? That's a new one," Ranma mumbled as he followed Tsukune and Moka through the halls.

"What do you mean? Aren't you a few grades ahead of us?" Tsukune asked. "You never belonged to a school club?"

"Nah, wasn't my thing," Ranma explained as he glanced at the various students and teachers advertising their groups. "Furinkan didn't require us to join any clubs, so I didn't bother. A few of the sports teams wanted me to join 'em, but what's the point?"

"It **could** let you show off your physical prowess in a way that doesn't involve hurting anyone," Moka suggested dryly.

"Yeah, exactly. Pointless," Ranma said, nodding as the vampiress massaged her forehead. "I might have joined a martial arts club if there was one, but in Nerima there are so many schools of martial arts that nobody wants to practice simple kenpo or karate. And while martial arts tea ceremony was kind of fun, it's not the kind of thing I want to do every week, you know?"

Tsukune stared incredulously at the pigtailed boy. "Martial arts WHAT? How can tea ceremony-"

"Never mind that, Tsukune," Moka insisted, grabbing the boy's arm and tugging him along, "we have to find a club to join, right?"

"But... martial arts tea ceremony?"

"If you think about it too much, you might catch Ranma's crazy," Moka warned, ignoring said boy's indignant look and orienting Tsukune toward the milling crowd. "Look at all the groups on display!"

Ranma was gratified to see that at least the student clubs seemed to have a great deal of variety and inhuman touch to them even with most of the classes seeming mostly ordinary and mundane (Richard's homicidal streak notwithstanding). There was a club based on mummies and another one that seemed to be populated with ghosts. The science club toted a few limbs that moved on their own and seemed to have a definite dissection focus, while the debate club featured rather amusing topics such as the health benefits of eating meat while it's still alive.

However interested Ranma was by the colorful array of monsters touting their individual interests, Tsukune was, however, an extremely ordinary person, and naturally he wanted to join the first ordinary club they found: the swimming club.

"Look you guys!" the younger boy said excitedly as a small parade of girls wearing swimsuits marched through the crowd, waving to the students. "Swimming sounds like fun, right? Why don't we give this one a try?"

Tsukune had to fight down a sigh of relief at finding a club that was both very normal and involved the one physical skill he was actually good at. It certainly didn't hurt that joining the club would oblige Moka to attend wearing a swimsuit, either.

"Uh... swimming?" Moka asked, her voice betraying a remarkable lack of excitement that immediately cut down Tsukune's optimism.

"Yeah! Swimming's a lot of fun!" Tsukune said with some desperation, the girls in bikinis nodding happily behind him. "Don't you think so, Ranma?"

The younger boy's face darkened as he saw that Ranma was facing away, avoiding eye contact as a sweatdrop rolled down his head.

"Oh... right... cold water..." Tsukune said miserably.

"Why don't we go look for something else?" Moka said as she grabbed one of Tsukune's hands.

"Ditto," Ranma said simply as he took the younger boy's other hand, and the two of them quickly dragged Tsukune away from the pouting scantily-clad girls and down the hall.

"So if swimming is out, is there any other club around here that's normal?" Tsukune asked, his voice depressed.

"Why are you set on a normal club?" Ranma asked, glancing back at his younger friend. "I mean, as long as we're going to a monster school, doesn't it make sense to do something special?"

"But some of these clubs look **dangerous**!" Tsukune insisted.

"What do you mean?" Moka asked curiously, looking back at Tsukune with Ranma.

In response, Tsukune pointed ahead of them.

Ranma and Moka turned, and the former's face darkened as he saw Professor Richard standing at attention next to a sign that said "Orphan Club." Most of the students were giving him a wide berth, and as a result he looked rather out of place with a large bubble of empty hallway around him amidst the throng of excited students.

Moka cocked her head to the side. "Orphan Club? Do you help children who have lost their families?"

"Pffft!" Richard snorted violently, his head shaking before he erupted into incredulous laughter. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha haaa! Ha ha ha ha haaa-no," he said suddenly, straightening as Moka's expression darkened to match Ranma's.

"Then what's the point of the club?" Tsukune asked cautiously.

"It's not a club **about** orphans, it's a club **for** orphans," Richard explained plainly, clasping his hands behind his back.

"So... what? Only orphans can join your club?" Ranma asked.

"Oh, no, that's not the case at all," the warlock insisted. "If you're not an orphan when you join, we can fix that later."

The three teenagers all adopted expressions ranging from horrified to annoyed.

"It's actually one of my favorite club activities!" Richard explained happily even as the three students quickly moved away. "Wait! Do you want a pamphlet? It has pictures!"

Once they were a sufficient distance away from the warlock, the trio silently agreed to forget all about what they had just seen and heard and explore more possible activities.

"Ooh, how about this?" Moka said suddenly, attracting Ranma and Tsukune's attention as she dashed over to a booth off in a corner of the hallway. "A nursing club!"

Ranma and Tsukune shared a glance, both being fairly uninterested, but shrugged it off after a moment. Tsukune reasoned that a nursing club was probably as normal as the activities were going to get outside of basic sports, and Ranma reasoned that it might be a good idea to get on good terms with the nursing staff in preparation for eventually ending up in their care.

"Ah, thank you for your interest. I am the school nurse, Fran Madaraki," said the girl who greeted Moka as Ranma and Tsukune stepped up behind her. The girl didn't seem old enough to be a teacher, looking to be around Ranma's age with waist-long blond hair and a flat chest. Her most noticeable characteristics, however, were definitely the giant iron bolts sticking out of the sides of her head and the numerous stitchings around her face and hands, with the most prominent ones being all around her neck and two more that ran from the corners of her mouth and disappeared behind her hair.

Of course, the strangeness of the nurse hardly distracted from the strangeness of the numerous "people" behind the nurse. Many were of enormous or unusual stature, and all were fully covered in big coats, hazmat suits, or in one case, bandage wrappings that completely concealed their faces as well as everything else.

"What's up with those guys?" Ranma asked of the nurse, pointing to the figures wearing hazard suits. "Is there some kinda radiation spill around here?"

"Oh, no, nothing of the sort," Fran said pleasantly. "Those are merely my assistants."

"They're dressed rather... completely," Tsukune said awkwardly, staring nervously at one particular assistant who was wearing a hockey mask with some dried bloodstains on it.

"Ah, yes. My assistants must conceal their appearance entirely whenever out of the office in order to comply with school rules," Fran explained, which only added to the students' confusion. "Since everybody on campus must remain disguised as a human."

"I don't understand," Moka said, glancing at the creatures that stood unflinchingly at attention, "is there something wrong with their human forms?"

"Not exactly," the nurse admitted. "It's that we don't have strictly 'human' forms."

The three teenagers blinked.

"Being able to manifest a human appearance at will is a peculiar trait adapted by many monster species as a tool of survival amongst the inflating human populations, as well as the result of the occasional cross-breeding here and there," Fran elaborated. "Unfortunately, it's a trait I've so far been unable to instill in reanimated bodies."

"Reanimated bodies?" Ranma asked, so perplexed he didn't see Moka and Tsukune's faces darkening, "What's that mean?"

"It refers to an organic entity that has been constructed artificially from deceased tissue samples rather than through ordinary and natural growth," Fran explained. Upon seeing that the pigtailed boy still looked quite confused, she spent a moment to think up an appropriate simile. "All right, think of it this way: imagine if you could restore dead things to life. Not perfectly, of course. You couldn't really bring someone back from the dead, but you could start up that person's body again so that it could move and function on its own and follow commands and such."

Ranma nodded slowly.

"If that was the case, then rather than seeking out assistants to be trained and paid for their services, couldn't you instead simply gather some bodies and turn them into functional assistants without any needs beyond basic food, rest, and maintenance?" Fran elaborated, apparently oblivious to the uncomfortable expressions on Moka and Tsukune.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Ranma murmured. "They'd be like squishy robots or something, right?"

"Precisely," Fran agreed, smiling. "And if you could do that, it makes sense that instead of simply reanimating random bodies, you'd try to select bodies that are best suited to what you want the assistant to do. And with study and practice, you might as well go a step further and actually build entirely new bodies from different parts to make them even more effective, wouldn't you?"

Ranma nodded more quickly, actually becoming somewhat intrigued.

Fran smiled angelically. "That's a good example of the nursing club's activities. We do plenty of ordinary medical practice as well, but it's the goal of the nursing club to not only fix, but improve!"

"Wow, that sounds pretty-" before Ranma could finish his sentence, he felt each of his arms grabbed from behind, and suddenly found himself being dragged backward away from the nursing club booth. "Hey, what's the big idea?"

"Thank you Miss Madaraki," Moka said quickly as she helped Tsukune escape the area with Ranma. "We have to go now, but we'll definitely consider joining!" she lied.

"Hey, let's go this way! This way looks interesting!" Tsukune insisted, turning a corner to get themselves out of sight of the school nurse.

A few moments later, Ranma was walking on his own again, looking rather disappointed with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I don't know what the big deal is. She seemed really nice. And that's like the first time I've EVER heard someone make science sound interesting."

"That's one kind of science you probably shouldn't look into," Tsukune said nervously.

"Hey, here are some of the sports clubs," Moka pointed out, seeing several students carrying baseball bats with nails in them and hockey sticks that looked suspiciously like scythes.

Tsukune grimaced and turned away, uninterested; he wasn't the most athletic person on the best of days, and he just **knew** that a sports club was going to be populated with monsters whose natural traits made them superior players. Being a human on such a team would be emasculating enough. Being a rather lousy human would probably get him kicked out or beaten up.

As he looked over the other side of the hall, a rather large, poorly-written sign grabbed his attention. It was posted in front of a set of large double-doors and bore the simple words "Fight club."

"Huh? Fight club? What kind of a club is that?"

Ranma promptly whirled about to see what Tsukune was talking about. "What do you mean? It's pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?"

Moka rolled her eyes. "No, he's right. These clubs are supposed to teach students about ordinary human activities - although it seems a lot of the administrators are missing that particular point - so shouldn't this be the Judo club or the martial arts club or something?"

_Wham!_ Ranma barely had time to pull Tsukune out of the way as a rather hairy student flew painfully through the doors and slammed hard into the ground, rolling into an uncontrolled tumble that sent him hurtling into the basketball club and knocking them over like bowling pins.

Ranma helped a rather stunned Tsukune back onto his feet and then shrugged. "Well, maybe they're trying to be more inclusive. Let's go check it out."

"Sad, sad, sad!" complained a woman standing in the middle of a mostly empty classroom and dusting off her hands. "Come on now, I saw that move a mile away! Try it again!" She had short, dark red hair and a thin but muscular physique, and she wore a shortened black T-shirt along with loose-fitting cargo pants.

When Ranma stepped in followed by a reluctant Moka and Tsukune, she blinked and jabbed a thumb toward the wall behind her. "Oh, new people, eh? Find a spot to watch, I'm in the middle of a try-out."

Tsukune flinched. "What? Seriously? You knocked that guy out cold!"

The redhead raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Him and half the basketball club," Ranma said, glancing out the damaged doors.

"Well, then I guess the try-out's over," the woman grumbled as she crossed her arms over her chest in disappointment. "Let that be a lesson to the rest of you!" she suddenly shouted at the other students that were standing along the walls and quietly expressing varying levels of sympathy, "a clumsy, mistimed attack isn't just a waste of energy; it's an invitation for someone who actually knows what she's doing to cave your jaw in! Pay more attention!"

Moka watched bemusedly as Ranma's interest rose in perfectly inverse proportion to Tsukune's nervousness.

"Hey, for those of us just arriving, what's this all about?" Ranma asked bluntly, drawing the redhead's attention.

The woman looked Ranma up and down appraisingly as she replied. "This is the fight club!" she shouted. "It's purpose is simple: to gather together the finest warriors on campus and provide them with an arena to test their strength and skill to their hearts' content! To be a monster in the human world is to know hardship! Survival is a constant battle! And only those who overcome hardship have the right to call themselves warriors!"

Ranma had to admit he was quite impressed with the redhead's passionate outburst, although he couldn't quite see the connection she was trying to express.

Apparently, neither could Moka. "But Youkai Academy teaches us to coexist peacefully in the human world," the vampiress pointed out. "Aren't you just indulging the violent impulses that we're being taught to ignore?"

There was a long, deep silence in the room as the redhead gaped uselessly, trying to come up with a comeback for that.

Suddenly, Ranma coughed into his fist before giving Moka a sharp glance. "What are you talking about? Humans fight all the time! Japan has a rich warrior history, you know!"

The club leader nodded rapidly, quite relieved at the save. "That's right! Living among humans doesn't mean you have to be a pacifist! You just have to learn to fight the way humans do!"

"Don't most of them use firearms nowadays, though?" Moka asked doubtfully.

The redhead turned toward Ranma as a vein bulged on the side of her head. "Is she always this annoying?"

"Eh, she has her moments," the pigtailed boy responded, shrugging. "But anyway, tell us more about this club."

"Of course!" the young woman said, coughing into her fist before gesturing to herself. "First off, allow me to introduce myself! I am the assistant gym instructor at Youkai for the first-years, Riza Wildman!"

After glancing about, Riza spread her arms to gesture to the room in general. "I know that clubs here on campus are supposed to be modeled after the clubs in human schools, so the fight club is based upon groups of humans that occasionally band together based on a common fighting style and general combat prowess."

Ranma nodded. That description was pretty well in line with martial arts clubs.

"These human warrior clubs would then assert their dominance over the rest of the school," Riza continued, "with the ultimate goal of gaining glory and reputation. Eventually many of these clubs even had their own territories, and as the primary power of the region, exacted tolls from other students that wished to use their land."

By this point Ranma was scratching his head, perplexed, and Tsukune groaned.

Moka gently poked the younger human in the side before whispering to him. "Hey, isn't she describing..."

"Schoolyard bullies, yes," Tsukune sighed. Being unremarkable and timid, he'd had plenty of experience with the sort.

"That's the sort of club the fight club is," Riza said proudly, hands planted on her hips, "we train and battle to compete with the other greatest powers on campus, such as the Enforcers or even the monstrels! Our path is dangerous, but a warrior knows nothing else! What do you say?"

"Doesn't that just make you a formalized gang of street thugs?" Moka asked, frowning.

Riza turned to Ranma. "Okay, seriously, can you get her out of here?"

Ranma gave the redhead an apologetic look before stepping over next to his two companions. "I think I'm gonna look into this club a bit further. If you guys aren't interested, you can head out without me."

Moka looked quite ready to do just that, but Tsukune looked fairly devastated as the vampiress started pulling him out of the room. "A-Are you sure? I mean, we haven't even looked over all the clubs yet..."

"Don't worry about it. I'll catch up with you later," the pigtailed boy assured him, smiling as he turned toward Riza. "So, who's next for try-outs?"

Riza waited until the annoying girl and the rather timid-looking guy had left the room, and then she coughed into her hand. "All right people! Since we've had six knockouts so far, let's try a different approach; my knuckles are starting to hurt and beating you all to a pulp one by one is taking too long!"

With that declaration, she pointed to two random students in the far corner of the room. "You two! You're first! You'll fight each other until one of you achieves knockout or until I say stop! I'll decide then and there if you're Fight Club material!"

One of the chosen students, a short boy with a bald, shining head, cracked his knuckled as he grinned. "Are we allowed to reveal our true form?"

Riza snorted. "First rule of fight club!" she declared as all the students stared at her expectantly, "You will NOT reveal your true form!"

The redhead noted that all the students around her mostly looked perplexed. "Second rule of fight club! You may not kill your opponents! I know it's not necessarily the warrior's way, but this is all for the purposes of your education, and that means you have to feign being 'civilized'! And being civilized means that you have to stop attacking before you crush any important organs!"

After a few seconds, Riza raised an eyebrow. "Why does everybody give me weird looks when I explain the rules of fight club?"

"I think most of us were expecting something else," Ranma mumbled, shrugging.

"Whatever. You two! Get to it!"

The first match was shorter than Ranma had expected, and fairly one-sided. The short boy charged his much larger opponent, seemingly unfazed that there was almost two feet difference in sheer height between them.

He struck quickly and sloppily, striking the larger student a good three times before he caught a glancing blow to his cheek and had to back away for fear of being overpowered.

His opponent seemed completely unfazed by the attack at first, idly brushing the spots where he had been hit with his hand.

Just as he was about to launch his own attack, however, the taller student hesitated and glanced down at his hands, which had small streaks of blood on it.

Ranma raised an eyebrow as he watched the larger student start to sway unsteadily on his feet, looking dizzy. 'Those weren't pressure points. And those punches didn't look strong enough to topple a sixth-grader... then... poison?'

His guess was vindicated when the bald kid's opponent fainted, crumpling to the floor in a pale, twitching heap.

"Heh heh heh... don't worry, you won't die. I only tapped you," the little man hissed smugly, idly rubbing his bruised cheek.

"What the hell was that?" Riza demanded, looking disgusted. "Are you serious? That's your technique?"

"Hey, I won, didn't I?" the student retorted. "And I didn't change. A win is a win."

"Don't be stupid!" the redhead roared, almost knocking the surprised student over from the sheer volume. "You can't win all your fights with cheap tricks! What are you going to do when it doesn't work? You have no strength and your stance leaves too many openings!"

The bald boy bristled irritably. "Oh yeah? I'd bet on my 'cheap tricks' against any muscleheaded punk here!"

Riza promptly turned her head to scan the room, her eyes narrowed. "Well? Any muscleheaded punks want to take that bet?"

Ranma raised his hand.

* * *

"Aw man, I was really hoping we could all join the same club," Tsukune complained as he and Moka walked down the crowded halls.

Moka rolled her eyes. "Well, Ranma doesn't have very much in common with us. It's only natural that he'd jump onto the first opportunity to beat someone up."

Tsukune sighed at the description. Moka and Ranma seemed to be getting along a little better recently, but they still had plenty of barbs for each other. Moka still saw the martial artist as little more than a well-meaning thug, while Ranma still had to restrain himself from clobbering the vampiress whenever she fed on Tsukune.

"Well, if it's just you and me, what sort of group should we join?" Tsukune finally asked. Glancing around he couldn't see anything that interested him, and quite a few groups that warranted keeping a safe distance.

Moka put a finger to her lip as she thought about it. "Well, maybe we could-"

"TSUKUNE!" Before either of them could recover from the sudden shout, Tsukune found himself being grabbed from behind and then engulfed in a crushing hug that had his face buried in a pair of warm, fleshy cushions.

Moka's eye twitched as she watched Kurumu mash Tsukune's head into her cleavage. "Kurumu, if you keep that up you're going to hurt him..."

The succubus shot Moka a disdainful stare, but let go of the gasping human anyway. "Tsukune, I'm glad I found you! What club are we going to join?"

Tsukune wobbled a bit on his feet before answering. "W-Well, we haven't really decided... although Ranma seems pretty set on the fight club."

"Ah, that makes sense," Kurumu mumbled, nodding. "You know, I'll bet he's actually a warrior breed monster, like a minotaur or something. If he's really not a vampire."

"He's NOT," Moka snapped defensively. "Anyway, you haven't found a club you like yet?"

"I'm joining whatever club Tsukune joins!" the succubus said, taking hold of the boy's arm. "So, where should we go?"

"Well, Miss Nekonome did bring up the newspaper club in class," Moka mused. She was hardly enthralled by the idea, but perusing the clubs had completely sapped her enthusiasm for extracurriculurs. "Does that sound okay?"

"I guess I could-" Tsukune's response was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing his throat behind him, and he quickly turned around even as a cold tingle ran down his spine.

Standing behind the group was a man that none of them had seen before, although Tsukune figured out his identity from a few of the descriptions Ranma had given of the man.

"Professor Jadeite?" the lone human asked somewhat nervously, noting that the blonde man was staring down at them rather disdainfully with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Ah, you've heard of me," the Dark General said, uncrossing his arms. "And what would your names be?" Tsukune shared a nervous glance with the girls. "Well, uh-"

"It's not important," Jadeite said suddenly, rubbing his chin in thought. "In any case, I've decided to allow you to join my club."

"Your... club? What club is that?" Moka asked, a faint sliver of desperate hope in her voice. She had to fight to remain optimistic about the club's activities, as she had the distinct feeling that their joining was not strictly voluntary.

"I host the Youkai exploration club," Jadeite explained, briefly sweeping his cape behind him.

"Exploration club? That sounds like it could be interesting," Kurumu admitted, still latched onto Tsukune.

"Indeed. This mansion and its legions of uneducated, insipid pawns aren't the only things that are hidden from the prying eyes of the human world. Numerous dangerous artifacts, arcane secrets, and volatile creatures can be found amongst the wastelands surrounding the youkai campus. It is the duty of the exploration club to locate, survey, confirm, and... **use** them," the Dark General said with a slight smirk on his lips.

Tsukune already had a bad feeling about this venture, and he felt his heart sink deeper into his stomach even after he thought of something else to ask. "Wh-What kinds of things do you think are out there? I mean... how dangerous can this be?"

"I imagine expeditions to range from merely painful to suicidal," Jadeite answered casually, shrugging as if it was hardly any matter. "You realize, of course, that out of the monster races, barely seventy-five percent can even be considered possibly intelligent enough to imitate human behavior. Let me ask you this: what do you do with the ones too violent and stupid to pass for humans, hmm?"

"K-Keep them someplace far, far away from here?" Tsukune asked almost pleadingly.

"Well, if you're me, then you toss them into Tokyo and tell them to give it a try anyway. If nothing else, it's a good way to reduce headcount right before centennial performance reviews," Jadeite mumbled. "But for the most part, they're all hidden or sealed in out-of-the-way places that lack the security to keep out mildly interested explorers from bumbling inside and awakening them from a peaceful slumber. And that is where our club comes in!"

"It sounds very... exciting," Moka said with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. "But we actually already joined a club already, so we wouldn't really have the time," she lied.

Jadeite raised an eyebrow. "Oh. That's... a shame." Turning away slightly, he started twirling his finger in the air in front of his eyes. "And what club would that be?"

_Fwoof!_ A perplexingly dark flame appeared in the gentle spiral the Dark General made with his finger, and Tsukune grimaced as the eldritch flame seemed to suck in all nearby light as it slowly grew bigger.

"Ah, what Moka MEANT to say was that we had a club in mind, but forget that!" Kurumu said nervously. "Let's try this exploration club! It sounds like it could be... uh... **different**!"

The flame promptly vanished, much to the relief of the distressed teens. "Good," Jadeite said simply, reaching into his breast pocket and withdrawing a trio of small cards. "The exploration club meets on Mondays after classes at four P.M. precisely. There will be an introductory session today at the same time. If you are not on time, you will be DISINTEGRATED. And I assure you, the process is neither as quick nor as painless as it sounds."

The Dark General turned sharply on his heel, leaving the three disenheartened teens to stare listlessly at the small paper cards that sealed their fates as members of Jadeite's questionable conscription efforts.

"See?" Tsukune finally said glumly, turning toward Moka, "See what happens when we leave Ranma behind?"

* * *

_Whud!_ A large, gangly-looking student slammed hard into the wall, a high-pitched shriek escaping from his lips as his well-disguised carapace strained against the force of the impact.

Ranma remained in the middle of the room with his palm still extended in the striking position, his breath coming out in short, measured gasps. He had a few gashes around his arms and a burn across his chest, but seemed largely unhurt, if not a little stiff.

Although he'd be the first to proclaim himself a much better fighter than any of the dozen or so monsters he'd faced, nearly all of them had some sneaky trick or two that related to their monster forms, and some of them were pretty damn brutal. One in particular had given him a rather severe electric shock, and it took all his concentration to keep his muscles from locking up.

"Not a bad attack, but you faltered too quickly!" Riza declared, pointing at the recently walloped student. "You've seen plenty of fights by now, you know your opponent's speed and reactions! If you don't have anything to offer other than an all-out assault, put your heart and soul into it!"

The student looked rather uncertain as he shook off his dizziness. "Can I put my chitinous claws into it, too?"

"Yeah, okay, whatever," the redhead said, gesturing toward Ranma. "Now get in there!"

Ranma blinked as his opponent charged. "Wait a minute, I thought that was against the ru-YIPE!" he barely managed to throw himself backward as a scythe-like claw suddenly slashed out at his neck. "Hey! That's against the rules too! No lethal attacks!"

"Actually, the rule was 'no killing'," Riza corrected, her arms crossed under her breasts, "and since you're still alive, he didn't break that rule, did he?"

"What about the first rule?" the pigtailed boy complained as he backed away from two more wild slashes.

"Can you tell what kind of monster he is?" the redhead snapped. "No? Then he didn't reveal his identity. Now stop whining and get back to fighting!"

'People I barely know are trying to rip my throat out while some angry chick yells at me from the sidelines. If it weren't for the lack of Amazons, it'd be just like home,' Ranma mused as he bounced over a blade sweep that could have sliced his ankles off. 'Still feeling a bit stiff from that electric shock... geez, how much electricity was that, anyway? I landed on a power line once, but it didn't seem THAT bad...'

He idly noted that he had dodged backward all the way to the edge of the room, and Ranma dodged into a roll to one side as his foe's next attack sliced a nice long cut into the wall.

The sycthe-handed student had just pulled his arm free when Ranma turned around and grabbed his wrist, promptly sticking the curved blade back into the wall.

"Why, you!" the insectoid snarled as he tried to stab his free scythe under the arm that was stuck. Unfortunately the awkward position combined with the unwieldy size of the limb sapped all the strength and precision from the desperate attack, and Ranma easily grabbed his foe's other wrist before cramming the other scythe into the wall as well.

"Hey! Stop that!" the hapless student complained as he tried to tug his limbs free.

In response, Ranma grabbed the back of his head. "Don't feel too bad; you almost touched me a couple times back there."

_Wham!_ Then Ranma smashed the boy's face into the wall as well.

"Not bad, not bad!" Riza said, arms still crossed. "All of you, take note: martial skill and expertise can make up for almost any monstrous advantage! Whether it's bladed fingers or poison spikes, if your opponent can predict and dodge your attacks, none of it matters, does it?"

A weak groan came from one of the students on the floor. "Not... ugh... fair. He's a bloody psychic!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head. "I'm not a mind slayer or whatever, I'm a human!" he would've given the thoughtless monstrosity a bump on the head if he hadn't already beaten it nearly to unconsciousness; any more at this point just felt like bullying.

Riza gave the pigtailed boy a raised eyebrow for a moment, and then shrugged off the proclamation as she continued to address the room at large. "Well, whatever. Being a warrior doesn't mean that you'll win every battle you're presented with; at times victory will be out of your reach, and the only thing you'll have to look forward to is either an honorable death or a long, painful recovery followed by a grueling training regimen to try and patch together your shattered pride." Then she beamed. "Fortunately for all of you, as fresh fight club recruits, you get the latter! After a week or so in the nurse's office for your bones to knit, we're going to start cracking down on turning you punching bags into real fighters, so look forward to it!"

The chorus of pained moans and the occasional gasping cough coming from the floor didn't sound particularly happy, although most of the students were in fact quite pleased that they wouldn't have to drag their broken bodies to any other club try-outs.

"And of course I'm in too, right?" Ranma asked, pointing to himself as he finally let his body relax.

In response, Riza poked him in the forehead. "Don't get too cocky there, Human. Yeah, you're in, but you'd better stay sharp or someone... might...... what?" she had to trail off as the pigtailed boy stared at her with what definitely approached complete, rapturous joy. Was he THAT desperate to get into her club?

"You... You called me 'Human'," Ranma said, almost choking on a sob of relief. As a nickname it wasn't anything nice, certainly, but he was just glad someone finally believed him!

Riza's brow furrowed. "What? That? I just thought it would work for you since you apparently take the 'pretend to be human' thing all the way to the hilt," she explained.

Ranma's happy demeanor tanked instantly. "Then... you don't believe I'm a human either?"

"No," the redhead said simply, sniffing the air. "You smell kind of like one, but there's this other scent too... it's like... dead insects and cobwebs? Are you some kind of spider creature?"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. "Our dorms have an infestation, okay?" Really, the spider population was completely out of control, and Tsukune absolutely REFUSED to sleep if there were any arachnids bigger than an apple in the room. What was he supposed to do, call up an exterminator?

"Whatever. It's none of my business," Riza decided. "Anyway, since most of the club is decimated, we'll hold the first session next week on Monday after classes. See you all then!"

Another round of pained groaning came from the floor.

* * *

Tsukune emitted a leaden sigh as he trudged to the lunch room, looking totally depressed despite the two beautiful girls that followed him in.

"Ranma warned me to stay away from Professor Jadeite and Richard; what are we going to do?" he asked.

Kurumu shrugged helplessly as she brushed up closer to her beloved. "Well, there isn't much we CAN do at this point, right? I say we should just give it a shot!"

Moka nodded hesitantly. "I suppose you're right. If we're careful and look out for each other, I'm sure the exploration club won't be that bad! It might even be fun!"

"Exploration club?" a gruff voice from ahead of the trio caught their attention, and Tsukune blinked as he beheld a rather tall student with preposterously large arms and hair that stood straight up on his head.

Standing next to him, and doing a fair job of staying unnoticed, was a young girl dressed up, of all things, as a witch. She had short black hair and thigh-high stockings on, and when combined with the pointy hat and matching cape looked every bit the part of a grade schooler dressed up for Halloween.

"Yes, the exploration club," Moka repeated hesitantly. "We just joined."

"Well, it's more like we were just drafted," Kurumu mumbled.

The male student stared at the three newcomers for a moment, and then a smile slowly split his face. "Well, I'll be. Looks like that loon Jadeite actually did something right for once. Glad I won't have to spend the semester trudging about with just him and some useless witch." He leered quite openly at the two teenage girls in front of him, and Moka and Kurumu's hopes for the semester took yet another painful dip into the doldrums.

Tsukune, for his part, was always eager to make friends, especially now that he knew that the people in front of him might be responsible for helping him escape an angry demon or something. "Oh, so there are other people in the club too! That's a relief! It'll be better with more people, you know?" The boy turned to look at him expressionlessly, which Tsukune chose to interpret as a good sign. "I'm Aono Tsukune! What's your name?"

The boy then grabbed Tsukune by his shirt lapels and hauled him up into the air, which he had greater difficulty interpreting in positive manner.

"Seriously? **You're** Aono? Oi," the brute snorted.

"Hey! What are you doing with him? Put him down!" Kurumu complained angrily, her nails starting to lengthen.

"I've heard a thing or two about you, Aono," the taller boy said grimly, ignoring Kurumu. "But still, actually seeing two smokin' babes attached to filth like you is somethin' else." Then he grinned in a manner that was decidedly unpleasant as Tsukune cringed. "You should drop outta the club while you can, bozo. Out there, in the middle of nowhere, people can just **disappear**, ya'know? It'd be a shame if something like that happened to ya. Catch my drift?"

"What are you saying? Leave Tsukune alone!" Moka complained.

"Wh-While you may have a point about quitting," Tsukune admitted while trying not to look TOO helpless, "Professor Jadeite DID say that he'd kill anyone who didn't show up, and I'm a lot more scared of him than I am of... well... you."

The hapless human grimaced as the student holding him grew visibly angrier. "Wait! You shouldn't start a fight in the lunch room! You could get hurt!"

"Why? You gonna tell the teacher on me?" the boy mocked as he reared a fist back.

"No, it's because my roommate always gets to the cafeteria before I do," Tsukune admitted.

The brutish student didn't have much time to ponder what that meant before he realized that his arm wasn't moving, as if it were locked in place by something. A quick glance behind him revealed that it was, in fact, locked in place by a pigtailed boy who was glaring at him for some reason.

"Kurumu, could you get Tsukune free so I can start hurting this guy?" Ranma asked blithely.

The succubus was only too happy to comply, and the confused brute yelped and released the young human as she slashed at his wrist.

"Thanks," the pigtailed boy mumbled as he started dragging the larger student through the double doors that Tsukune had entered from.

"H-Hey! Wait! Who are yoAAARUGHLGK!"

Moka and Kurumu started fussing over Tsukune immediately, though he did his best to reassure them quickly that he was unhurt. His attention was mostly on the young girl that had been standing behind his assailant; the entire time she hadn't spoken a word, but rather had observed them carefully.

Oddly enough, even with what had happened, the girl's attention wasn't Ranma or the maiming that was going on outside the cafeteria, but rather it was focused on Moka.

"Hi there!" Tsukune greeted, sounding bizarrely upbeat for someone who had nearly been smashed into the wallpaper. "Are you in the exploration club too? That other guy mentioned a witch, and, well, you look the part."

Tsukune wilted slightly as the little girl gave him an annoyed frown, but before she could respond, Kurumu piped up.

"Oh, I've heard of you! You're Yukari Sendo!" the succubus said, snapping her fingers. "You've been rated one of the top students in our grade level despite being only eleven years old!"

Yukari promptly shifted the irritated look to Kurumu. "Actually, I'm THE top student in our grade level," she corrected sharply.

Tsukune thought it was pretty arrogant to declare oneself the best student in a class before there had even been a proper round of tests and class rankings, but he wasn't about to argue the point. "Wow, that's amazing! I'm-"

"Tsukune Aono, I know," Yukari interrupted before negligently pointing to Kurumu. "And you're Kurumu Kurono, that dumb succubus who was making a scene right at the start of the semester."

Kurumu's attitude soured instantly, not that Tsukune could blame her. "Who are you calling dumb, you little brat?"

"Wait, Kurumu, calm down," Moka said nervously. While she thought that Yukari was being needlessly rude, she didn't want anybody to start picking on the poor little girl. She'd heard all sorts of stories about how bad witches had it among monsters, and she was sure this one didn't need any more enemies.

Ranma finally came up from behind the group, raising an eyebrow as he dusted off his hands. "Now what's all the fuss? Don't tell me a little girl is picking on you too."

Yukari turned to regard the new arrival, favoring Ranma with a decidedly bored expression. "And here's Aono's pet gorilla, Ranma Saotome. Yet another clueless tag-along."

The pigtailed boy stared down at the girl for a few seconds before turning to Tsukune. "Mouthy little runt, huh? Who is she?"

A vein popped up on Yukari's head. "**You** should know who I am better than the bimbo! At least we have a class together!"

"I can only memorize so many names so fast," Ranma explained, shrugging, "and so far I have to concentrate on keeping track of everyone who's tried to bite my face off."

"It's nice to see that you're at least making use of the little brain power you have," Yukari said dismissively, finally turning back to Moka. "And then, finally, we have Moka Akashiya."

The vampiress grimaced and braced herself, wondering what fiery criticism she'd have to endure.

"The single most wonderful, beautiful, intelligent person to ever light the halls of this grim, miserable hellhole!" the witch said reverently, eyes shining as she stepped up to Moka and took the taller girl by the hands.

Ranma, Tsukune, and Kurumu all shifted to the side as their eyebrows slowly climbed up their foreheads.

"That's, uh... th-thank you?" Moka said uncertainly, feeling rather awkward as the pre-teen stared up at her lovingly. "I'm a little surprised though... I mean, we've never even met..."

"I've seen you, though! How could I not?" Yukari squealed girlishly. "Every time you merely walk down the hall, it's like a ray of sunshine slicing through the darkness! I fell in love with you the moment I saw you!"

Ranma scratched the back of his head as Tsukune looked perplexed and Kurumu tried to stifle her giggling. "Say, is there anything stopping us from getting lunch right now?"

"Uh, not as such, no," Tsukune admitted, eyes still locked on the love confession playing out before him.

"Then let's get something to eat. I think Moka can handle this one on her own," the pigtailed boy mumbled, turning toward the lunch line.

Tsukune was hesitant to follow, but soon found himself dragged in that direction anyway by a suspiciously happy Kurumu. "Come on Tsukune, let's leave the two love birds alone!"

"Yes, it's v-very nice to meet you too, Yukari," Moka said politely as the eleven year-old clamped onto her waist. "I hope we have fun together in the exploration club."

"Me too! I know that Professor Jadeite press-ganged you into it, but as long as you're with me, I won't let you come to harm!" the young witch promised, stars in her eyes. "I... I know it's a lot to ask of someone like you, but... is it possible... you could be my friend?" Yukari almost begged, her eyes growing wide and wet.

Moka stood no chance against the adorable assault, and all the reluctance and awkwardness she had felt earlier (mostly on account of Yukari treating her friends like dirt) evaporated. "Of course I'll be your friend!"

"Really? Is it okay?" Yukari asked wistfully.

"Sure! I'm sure we'll have a great time exploring the wasteland together!" Moka said, her voice bright with unwarranted optimism.

The sound of lunch trays being placed on the table behind them alerted the two girls that their other companions had returned.

"Awwww, just look at them, they're perfect for each other!" Kurumu gushed disingenuously as she snapped her chopsticks apart. "So when's the wedding?"

Before Moka could say anything, Yukari promptly turned on the succubus with a vengeance. "Don't you dare mock her, you top-heavy cow! Leave Moka alone!" After glaring cutely for a few seconds, a blush crept over her features. "Besides, we haven't even started dating yet..."

Kurumu had to admit that the flustered look on Moka's face was well worth the price of being called a cow, and she once again had to stifle laughter.

"Seriously though," Ranma mumbled between mouthfuls of curry, apparently continuing a conversation that Moka hadn't heard, "I warned you about Jadeite and Richard. Those guys have no respect at all for their students and won't hesitate to kill you if you tick them off. If you are gonna go along with this, be careful."

"I just don't see how anybody that blatantly dangerous ends up being a teacher," Tsukune complained as he poked at his own food, "don't they have to be approved by a board or something?"

"Why would they need that?" Yukari piped up. "Only the human world has pointless bureaucracy like that. At Youkai Academy, all you need in order to teach is the headmaster's permission."

"Man, the headmaster must be some kind of jerk, then," Ranma mumbled.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the headmaster's office...

"Sir, we've had more than a dozen complaints from various students and teachers that Professor Richard is kidnapping students for his... 'orphan club' and locking them up in the basement of the school, supposedly as an 'authenticity exercise'," said a man in a formal suit and sunglasses standing near the door.

Within the office sat a man wearing a white cloak and a metal cross hanging around his neck. His face was mostly hidden by the shadows of his hood, but an ever-present grin was visible as were two shining lights that seemed to mark the figure's eyes. "Hmph. This could be... problematic. You're to find Professor Richard immediately."

The man at the door straightened. "And then, Headmaster?"

The headmaster's grin widened as he steepled his fingers. "And then you're to confirm that he'll still have time for golf this afternoon despite his club's activities."

"_Sigh._ Yes, sir. Right away."

* * *

Back in the lunch room, Yukari had evidently tired of the conversation with Moka's tag-alongs, and so she took hold of the vampiress's arm and started dragging her away. "Come on Moka, let's have lunch somewhere else! If you hang around these idiots, their stupidity could INFECT you or something."

"H-Hey!" Tsukune shouted defensively. "You hardly even know us! What's with the attitude?" Eager to force some kind of explanation out of the newcomer, Tsukune turned toward Ranma and Kurumu. "Am I right, guys?"

"See ya later, Moka," Ranma said between mouthfulls of curry.

"Enjoy your lunch!" Kurumu chirped, taking the opportunity to briefly snuggle Tsukune's arm.

Moka sweatdropped as Tsukune's face fell, and she managed to stop short of Yukari pulling her out of the lunch room. "Now, Yukari, be reasonable," she said placatingly, "Tsukune is a really nice person! You should give him a fair chance before saying something like that. And even Kurumu and Ranma aren't that bad once you get to know them."

The aforementioned pair briefly stuck their tongues out at the vampiress before they went back to their meals, not particularly caring where Moka spent her lunch hour.

Yukari, for her part, would have none of it. "Ha! You can't be serious! This menagerie of parasitic dimwits is a bleak shadow across your glorious presence!"

"Man, the runt's not shy, is she?" Ranma mumbled to his lunch companions.

"I'll bet this is how cults get started," Kurumu whispered back.

Tsukune merely ate his lunch in depressed silence, trying his best to numb himself against the constant insults.

"I mean, look at this sorry lot!" Yukari continued, pointing to Tsukune. "A relentlessly boring dullard with no outstanding features aside from his staggering naievete," her hand moved over to an increasingly irritated Kurumu, "a self-centered, oversexed airhead so desperate for companionship that she's latched onto the dullard like a barnacle at the first hint of acceptance," finally her attention rested on Ranma, "and let's not forget the arrogant brute who can hardly resist throwing his weight around and is SO into his own superiority that he STILL persists in claiming that he's an actual human, as if his following school rules so desperately impresses anyone other than his own swollen ego."

_Snap!_ Ranma's chopsticks promptly broke in his hand, and Tsukune and Kurumu winced as they mentally prepared themselves for the furious backlash sure to come. Moka, for her part, edged closer to the young witch just in case she'd have to get between the two.

Ranma was still and silent for a moment before he looked down at the shattered wood in his hand and then calmly set them down. "All right shrimp, listen up: I'll admit that it's kind of funny the way you're all over Moka because you don't have any other friends, but you're wasting your time. Moka **always** eats lunch with Tsukune."

Yukari's eyes narrowed. She had heard rumors that Moka and Tsukune were a couple, but after spending just a few minutes in the boy's presence she had declared such a travesty ridiculous. "Really? And why's that?" she demanded.

"Because Tsukune isn't just Moka's lunch buddy," Ranma said evenly, "he's Moka's actual LUNCH."

There was a long silence amongst the group as Yukari simply stared at the pigtailed boy, uncomprehending. "Wait, what?"

Glancing up at Moka herself, Yukari noted that the vampiress was blushing while trying not to make eye contact with anyone. A glance over at Tsukune revealed that he was equally flushed and idly scratching his neck self-consciously.

Being a genius, it didn't take long for her to put two and two together, and her face turned pink in jealous fury. "Is th-that all? That's nothing!" she declared to the trio before turning toward Moka. "Moka, you can drink MY blood from now on, okay? You don't need him anymore!"

To the witch's surprise and dismay, Moka briefly made a squeamish expression before she backed away nervously. "Ah, no, I couldn't, really," the vampiress said awkwardly. She didn't really know how a witch's blood would taste, but she had absolutely no desire to drink from anyone but Tsukune. "I'm sorry, but I..." she trailed off as she noticed the tears rapidly gathering in the younger girl's eyes, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

Yukari turned angrily to Tsukune and shook her fist at him in a childish rage. "This isn't over! I won't lose to you!" she declared before dashing out of the lunch room in a huff.

Moka naturally looked worried as the young witch ran off, her emotions torn. "Sh-Should I go after her?"

"NO," declared Tsukune, Kurumu, and Ranma simultaneously.

The vampiress wilted. "You guys could have been a little easier on her, you know."

"Hey, I tried to be nice," Tsukune insisted. "She decided on her own that she hated me!"

"Leave the brat alone. We'll have to deal with her all evening anyway," Kurumu said sadly as she finished off her lunch.

"I never said nothin' that wasn't true," Ranma said solemnly as he picked his plate clean with his broken chopsticks. "I mean, the only reason you're still here rather than trying to cheer up the shrimp is because you still haven't eaten, right?"

Moka's face reddened again and she turned pointedly away from Ranma's gaze and nervously glanced over at Tsukune.

Tsukune sighed and stood up. "Okay, okay, let's just go somewhere without so many people, all right?" he could feel the heat of Kurumu's envious glare, but there wasn't much he could do about offering his blood up for Moka. Especially after it drove away Yukari so quickly.

The aforementioned succubus watched heatedly as Tsukune and Moka scurried off like a pair of shameless lovers looking for a good spot to start necking (which actually was the case, in a twisted sort of way), but didn't bother to follow them. "Why does Tsukune let her get away with that, anyway?"

Ranma shrugged as he leaned back and sipped a soda. "I've seen guys go through much worse to impress women." Granted, Ryoga and Mousse had never had Akane and Shampoo ask to EAT them, but despite all logic he wasn't completely convinced they'd refuse.

Kurumu sighed and shifted a quick glance at Ranma. The pigtailed boy had at first struck her as wrathful and intimidating, but she'd found that he was surprisingly easy to talk to outside of a fight.

... Well, technically, he had first struck her with a ball of pure pyschokinetic force hurtling through the air like a train that had jumped its tracks, but that was neither here nor there.

The point was, putting aside the fact that he had come very close to turning her into a blackened crater in the main yard, she now found his presence comforting rather than terrifying. "Tsukune told me a bit about the club you got into, but didn't go into details. What was it like?"

"It was like an underworld pit fight but without the prizes," Ranma grunted, leaning forward onto the table. "I mean, it was fun, sure, but it was pretty annoying too. Way too many opponents and every single one of them had some stupid cheap trick that they figured could compensate for actual skill." He took a sip of cola before rethinking his statement and adding. "Not that I have anything against cheap tricks, but if that's all you have it doesn't keep a fight interesting for very long."

"When is your club meeting again?"

Ranma hesitated for a moment as he tried to remember Riza's instructions. "Ah, I dunno. Not for a while. I might have been a little too hard on the other members."

"Then is there a chance you could go with us to this exploration club meeting?" Kurumu asked hopefully. "It's okay if you can't join, but Tsukune's really nervous about this club and I know he'd feel better if you were there too." Then her expression soured. "Especially with Sendo being there. She looks harmless enough, but witches are tricky, and it looks like Moka's completely set on defending the little creep. If we let our guard down she could do something stupid and get someone hurt."

Ranma frowned at the thought. "I dunno about that. Seems to me like she's got more bark than bite. Besides, I actually have plans for this evening with Kana."

Kurumu was about to protest when she processed what Ranma had said. "Wait... with Kana? The siren girl?" A grin crept over her face. "Oh, I see! She kept you up all night and now you're going to return the favor, hmm?"

Ranma favored the girl's lewd smirk with rolling eyes. "It's not what you think."

"Oh? Then what is it?" Kurumu pressed eagerly.

"I... can't say. It's... personal," Ranma hedged nervously, which only served to confirm the succubus' assumption. "Anyway, if you're really going to follow that moron Jadeite around, take this."

Ranma glanced around to see if anyone was paying particular attention, and then carefully removed something from his pocket before quickly dropping it into Kurumu's palm and wrapping her hands around it.

Kurumu stared at the object in her hand, uncomprehending. "I don't get it. What is this supposed to be?"

"I'm not completely sure, but I have a hunch," Ranma mumbled. "If it looks like blondie is about to go off the deep end, try throwing it as a distraction or something."

"And what will that do?" Kurumu asked. "Jadeite doesn't seem like the type to fall for such a stupid decoy. Especially not a ragged one like this."

"He's a lot less stable than he looks," Ranma confided. "And I know it's in bad shape, but I actually had to fix it up myself; when I found it on his desk, it was really beaten up and torn."

Kurumu nodded uncertainly, and then blinked. "Wait... what were you doing around the teacher's desks?"

"Looking for things to steal that can be used against them. Obviously," Ranma said.

Kurumu gave him a long, hard stare.

"Look, my teachers are jerks, all right?" Ranma snapped. Granted, his math teacher seemed somewhat normal and his government teacher, if not normal, wasn't especially evil at least, but he couldn't see any reason not to be prepared.

* * *

"Oh no, oh no, oh no..." the Dark Liege mumbled to herself as she rifled through the piles of paperwork and various makeup cases scattered around her desk. "I can't find them anywhere! Oh, this is positively AWFUL!"

One of the art teachers, a woman with thin braids that were gathered up under a bandanna tied over her head, sighed as she turned away from her own desk toward the government teacher. "What did you lose this time, Liege?"

The buxom teacher pouted as her shoulders slumped. "Ishigami, I just can't find my soul shards!"

"Soul shards?" Miss Ishigami asked as she raised an eyebrow. "You mean those jewels that you needlessly crammed your soul into so that you'd ostensibly be harder to kill?"

The Dark Liege sniffled and nodded her head.

"I warned you that those things were a liability," Ishigami murmured as she massaged her forehead. "Moreso if you're going to keep them all in the same damn drawer."

"Stop being mean and help me look!" the blonde demon shouted, returning to her fruitless search.

"All right, all right..."

* * *

Once four o'clock rolled around, Moka, Tsukune (now with a fresh pair of puncture wounds on the side of his neck), Kurumu and a sulking Yukari were all gathered in Jadeite's usual classroom, although at this time of the day it was empty as would be expected.

Thankfully for the three teenagers, Yukari was either severely chastened by the encounter earlier in the cafeteria or was too busy plotting dire revenge against Tsukune and Ranma to make an annoyance of herself; she'd been blissfully quiet ever since she had arrived, occasionally glaring at Tsukune or throwing loving glances at Moka but saying nothing.

Tsukune glanced around the room before checking his watch conspicuously. "Well, it's four o'clock exactly. How long should we wa-WHOA!" he jumped back as a pool of inky darkness silently yawned open in front of him, and was only slightly surprised (and not at all relieved) when Jadeite stepped out of it into the classroom.

Each of the students stiffened as the Dark General looked them over one by one, and they fought the urge to cringe when the man frowned deeply.

"There are only four of you. Where's the other one?" Jadeite demanded.

"Other one?" Kurumu asked, perplexed. "OH! You mean that other guy, kind of tall, with the stupid hair and big shoulders?"

"Him? He must be in the nurse's office right now," Tsukune explained apologetically. "He had... uh... an accident, I think."

Jadeite nodded at Tsukune. "The nurse's office, is it? Very well. Remain here."

With a brief swirl of his cape, Jadeite stepped back into the shadowy portal, vanishing from view before the portal itself slipped out of view.

There was a long, morbid silence as the four students all stared at the spot where Jadeite vanished to.

"Did... Did I just become an accessory to murder?" Tsukune asked, his voice sounding just a bit manic.

"Of course not," Yukari said, marking the end of her silence, "those laws only exist in the human world."

"Do you mean laws against murder, or the accessory thing?" Tsukune asked nervously.

"Yes."

Before that train of thought could proceed any further, the dark portal once again spilled into existence in front of Tsukune, causing him to leap backward yet again as Jadeite once again entered the room.

"Very good. Now that we're all here, we can discuss today's venture," the Dark General began, straightening as he clasped his hands behind his back.

Tsukune raised his hand, prompting the blond man to raise an eyebrow. "Do you have a question before we proceed?"

"Yes. You... didn't really disintegrate that other student, did you?" Tsukune asked. "It wasn't his fault he couldn't make it here... well, not completely, anyway."

"No, I did not disintegrate him," Jadeite answered bluntly, much to Tsukune's relief. "Upon reflection, it seemed that it was, after all, far too quick and painless a death for anyone who would dare defy me. I cooked him alive in a storm of black flame."

As Tsukune and Moka stared at the man in undisguised horror, Kurumu winced at the thought. "Ah. And that doesn't... you know... strike you as... excessive?"

"Somebody help!" A voice from the hall outside screamed as it ran by. "The entire medical wing of the school is on fire!"

"Oh dark, hateful God below!" A different voice shouted as it followed the first. "Cruel though you may be, what have the sick and helpless done to warrant such a slaughter?"

Jadeite cast an annoyed glance toward the hall before turning back to Kurumu. "Perhaps a little more restraint might have been wise."

Yukari groaned and rubbed her forehead.

"Nonetheless, we must proceed as planned. Follow me, minions!" the blond man said, turning on his heel and entering the inky darkness.

"So, what, we're minions now?" Kurumu asked irritably as she followed an extremely nervous Tsukune and Moka into the portal.

"Be quiet before you get us all vaporized!" Yukari hissed.

* * *

Jadeite waited outside his portal with his arms crossed, staring off into the wasteland that surrounded Youkai Academy as his conscripts emerged one by one behind him.

To the side of the portal was their goal for the evening: an old, shattered well that had been sealed with an iron gate on top and wrapped in chains. Numerous signs warned people that entering the well was a bad idea, which ironically was the only indication that the small ruin actually contained anything other than rocks and maybe some dirty water.

Once the last student was through the portal, the Dark General snapped his fingers, causing the black gateway to collapse instantly and vanish from sight.

"Here we are, my minions," Jadeite said as he turned around. "The first dwelling..." he trailed off as he saw that the boy had his hand up again. "Curious little pest, aren't you? What is it now?"

Tsukune lowered his hand slowly, quite relieved that their instructor was willing to at least answer his questions. "Are all the outings in the exploration club going to be like this?"

"I will endeavor in the future not to destroy large portions of the school unless I absolutely have to," Jadeite said, rolling his eyes.

"That's, uh, good, but I wasn't really talking about that," Tsukune elaborated. "What I meant was, are you always going to just teleport us to the entrance of whatever we're exploring?"

"Also, are we always going to explore so close to the school?" Kurumu asked, pointing to the building maybe a dozen meters behind them. A few students that were sitting outside noticed the group and waved. "We could have just walked here. I think I can even see the classroom we were just in."

Jadeite was silent for a few moments before he coughed into his fist. "In the future, you can expect there to be more... exploration... in the exploration club, yes," he muttered irritably. "For now though, I thought a small, harmless-looking ruin sitting close to a safe haven would be a good, easy trial to start off the semester's activities."

"Really?" Tsukune asked, feeling somewhat relieved that their instructor was being minimally thoughtful as to their safety.

"Of course not. I threw a dart at a map, and here we are. Now shut up and get to work," Jadeite snapped.

The first thing to go was, of course, the gate sealing the entrance. Although both Kurumu and Moka were a great deal stronger than their size suggested, pulling at the chains proved useless.

'I'll bet Professor Jadeite could get us in easily,' Tsukune thought bitterly as he picked up one of the large padlocks. 'But if he didn't bother, it means he probably means to make us do it ourselves...'

"I don't know what kind of monster you are, but I doubt your stare can break locks," Yukari said testily from behind Tsukune. "Hold it this way."

Tsukune raised an eyebrow, but did as instructed, turning so that the large, oddly-shaped keyhole was facing the young witch.

Yukari rummaged about under her cape for a moment before producing a silly-looking rod with a heart on the end, holding it up in the air. "I can open this with the witch's wand! Now just stay still and I'll..."

She trailed off as a crackling noise came from behind her, and all four students cringed as they saw Jaedite trembling with an expression of pure hatred on his face and dark lightning lashing back and forth between his fingers.

"P-Professor Jadeite?" Yukari almost whimpered as she lowered her wand. "Is... something wrong?"

The Dark General hesitated, and then he blinked as the energy around his hands abated. "What? What was..." he looked around for a moment and then frowned. "My apologies. I forgot where I was for a moment. Continue."

Yukari hesitantly brought up her wand again, anxiously glancing back at the blond teacher every few seconds.

"Before you go any further," Jadeite said suddenly, causing the young witch to freeze, "I just want it on record that I hate your stupid-looking wand," he explained in a completely normal tone of voice. "And by extension, you as well. Carry on." The four students all stared at him with expressions ranging from annoyance to disbelief.

Yukari sighed miserably as she concentrated on her telekinesis, doing her best to shape her magic according to what she remembered about the mechanical functions of a padlock. After a good twenty seconds of muted clicking sounds, there was a dull _Snap!_ as the lock popped open.

"Oh, wow! Good job, Yukari!" Moka gushed as Tsukune and Kurumu unwrapped the chains and slowly pulled the heavy gate open.

Yukari beamed brightly under the praise, but her mood soured instantly as Jadeite stepped past her.

"Yes, congratulations, you managed to open a mundane iron lock with your magic, a feat that otherwise might have taken **minutes** had we to resort to more conventional means. Now if we're done patting ourselves on the back, perhaps we can actually make some progress, here."

Without belittling the students further, Jadeite levitated into the air above the well and then lowered himself straight down, ignoring all the annoyed glares at his back.

"Even when we do what he wants, he acts like a jerk," Kurumu mumbled quietly, not wanting the blond man to overhear. The well was too small for her to use her wings, so she started climbing down normally. Thankfully there were plenty of rocks sticking out of the wall and large holes here and there to act as leg and footholds, so it wasn't that difficult.

"Here Moka, I'll lower you in," Tsukune offered as he knelt on the edge of the well.

The vampiress brightened. "Oh thank you Tsu-"

"What are you, stupid?" Yukari said suddenly, glaring rather harshly at Tsukune. "There's no need for that."

With no more explanation than that, the witch tossed the end of the long length of chain down into the well, with the other end attached to the obnoxiously heavy gate.

"Ow!" came Kurumu's voice from deep within the well a moment later as the chain continued to descend, followed a moment later by mild swearing.

"Oh. Thank you, Yukari. That will make it much easier." Moka gave Tsukune an apologetic look before she grabbed the chain and started climbing down.

Yukari gave Tsukune a victorious smirk before she immediately headed down after her beloved, leaving the lone human by himself on the surface.

Tsukune, for his part, wanted to be angry about being bested but pushed aside the petty feelings. At least this way he was at much less risk of falling and breaking his neck.

'Still, this is all off to a terrible start. I wish Ranma was here. I wonder what he had to do that he couldn't come with us. Kurumu never did give us any details...'

* * *

"Meowr!"

A large scruffy tomcat mewed noisily as it padded across the rocky outcroppings that surrounded the Youkai Academy dorms.

Stopping for a moment, it sniffed the air for several seconds before meowing again.

_Mew!_ The tomcat's ears perked up at the sound that had drawn it this far: the faint, playful mewling of another cat, a crystal-clear plea for attention and companionship that had echoed all over for miles... somehow.

With a delighted bounce in its step, the horny little feline bounded over some piled-up deadwood, dashed up one side of a small hill of jagged rocks, and then hopped its way down the other side, desperately sniffing the air and glancing about for any sign of another cat.

"Meowr!" it called again, its tone delighted as it waited for the seductive call once again.

Several seconds passed, however, and its mood wavered as no call came to it.

"Meowr!" it tried again, sniffing about in agitation and glancing every which way.

Eventually, the tomcat turned around completely, and then it froze as it noticed for the first time that there was a large, dark, eight-legged shape crouched by a crevice in the rocks it had just crawled over, its night-black eyes glistening as it remained motionless barely a foot away from the hapless feline.

"Meowr?" was the last thing the tomcat had to offer before the spider launched its ambush, tackling it to the ground in a flurry of legs and fur.

After a few seconds of pointless struggle the conflict was over, and the arachnid slowly began wrapping its morbid prize in webbing.

Ranma emerged from where he was hiding up in the bare branches of one of the wasteland trees, and didn't even try to hide his grin as he walked up to the busy spider.

"That's the way! That's how you do it!" he cheered, eventually crouching right next to the spider and actually petting the hairy creature across its abdomen as it worked. "Who's a good girl? Who's a good girl? You are! You're a good girl!"

Up in the tree from where he had emerged, Kana released a bored sigh from where she sat on a branch wearing a rather daring miniskirt and a tube top.

Of course Ranma had explained in full detail why he wanted her help when he had approached her earlier that day, but she was still surprised that she had been expected to mimic kitty sounds to lure in local felines as bait for a bizarre training exercise. The explanation had just seemed so ridiculous when he had given it that she was sure he was just making a stupid excuse to lure her to a secluded place and have his way with her.

'No such luck,' she thought to herself as she stared down at several other large spiders lounging at the base of the tree and scattered among several cat-sized web cocoons.

After about a minute Ranma finally finished showering the latest victorious hunter with praise and strolled back to the tree, walking among the numerous large, hairy, and very poisonous spiders with no apparent fear of having his ankles chewed on.

"Hey Kana! How much longer can you stay out here?" Ranma asked, stopping at the base of the tree and crouching again to pet another spider. "If you want to leave, I think we've done well enough for today."

The siren favored him with a hesitant expression. "Well, I don't really have anything else to do, so I suppose another hour wouldn't hurt..."

"Okay, great," the pigtailed boy responded as one of the larger arachnids crawled up his arm. "I just wanna say again that I really appreciate it. I didn't want to use you like this, but I have no idea where I'm supposed to get raw fish around here."

"No, it's fine," Kana replied, "though I still don't understand why you're doing this."

Ranma shrugged as the big hairy beast crawled over his shoulder and across his back, tickling his neck as it passed. "It's just pest control."

"Most people would consider the spiders the pests, rather than the cats," Kana pointed out.

"Well, most people are WRONG," Ranma said stubbornly as another spider crept up his foot. Granted, too many of them got into their dorms at night, but part of this training was to help the creatures find more food out in the wilderness.

"Do we even have a lot of cats around here?" Kana questioned, not having seen a single one around campus before today.

"Not for long, we don't," the pigtailed boy replied.

There was a moment of silence between the two before Kana sweatdropped. "Uh... are you okay with those things crawling on you like that?"

"It's fine. They just like the body heat," Ranma explained. "So, we ready for another go?"

Kana's shoulders slumped, a slight tear coming from the corner of her eye (the one that was visible, that is). 'So much for my exciting, romantic rendezvous. How boring.' Not that she would've wanted to cuddle or make out so long as her partner had a bunch of large, hairy arachnids clinging to him. "All right. I'm starting again." _Mew!_

* * *

"Easy... easy..." Kurumu said through clenched teeth as she tiptoed through the bleak, underground cavern.

She gently shifted her weight onto the next tile, and then slowly moved her other leg onto the tile after that, her breath coming out in shallow gasps.

The next tile to be tested promptly sank into the floor the moment Kurumu's foot tapped it, and the succubus barely managed to lurch backward before a blade attached to a pendulum swung past right in front of her.

A few seconds later the blade swung back in the other direction, and then there was a dull clanking noise as some mechanism in the wall reset and the pressure plate slid back up.

After a few more seconds to give her heart time to start beating again, Kurumu turned to the others behind her. "Found another trap."

Tsukune and Moka were huddled together immediately behind her, the latter looking simply terrified while the former nervously kept them on the same narrow path that Kurumu took. Yukari followed behind them, her witch's wand glowing brightly to illuminate the cavern, and alternated between giving Tsukune jealous glares and looking sadly at the tip of her hat, which she had held in her free hand ever since an earlier trap had sliced it clean off.

Actually, Kurumu would've much rather been in Tsukune's arms herself, but it had become clear early on that they needed someone brave enough to take the lead in scouring the cavern, but not brave enough to tell Jadeite to shove it and go on his own. When they were discussing it amongst themselves earlier Tsukune had actually gathered up enough courage to suggest the second option, which led Kurumu to agree to take the first before her beloved got the life force yanked out of him.

Speaking of their club sponsor, Jadeite had simply sat down near the cave entrance with a book before telling them to call him when they reached the end. Not that they had any reasonable way to contact him once they got to wherever they were going, but none of them really cared about what happened to the Dark General so long as they got out of this well alive.

Besides, the bastard was the only one that could fly even within the claustrophobic confines of a narrow tunnel in which Kurumu's wings were useless. He was the last thing any of them needed to worry about.

"This would be SO much easier if you'd just let us use your stupid stick," Kurumu growled as she stepped over the pressure plate, gingerly testing the next floor tile.

"I don't CARE! I already lost my hat; I'm not going to put my wand at risk too!" Yukari complained as she hugged the implement to her chest.

"You think your wand is more important than my leg?" Kurumu growled back.

"Guys, guys, calm down!" Tsukune insisted gently. "Look, we're in a tough situation, but we can get through this, right? Kurumu, you're doing great. And if it weren't for Yukari giving us light, we wouldn't stand a chance! How much farther can this go?"

The two girls simmered for a moment, with Yukari being much more reluctant to listen to Tsukune, but having much less to complain about so long as she was in the back. After a few seconds they both nodded and fell silent.

"Hey, I think the tile ends back there!" Moka said suddenly, startling everyone else.

Kurumu peered into the shadows, but had a hard time seeing more than a meter in front of her. "Are you sure? I can't tell..."

"I can see pretty well in the dark," Moka explained, looking slightly braver after Tsukune's little speech. "I think it turns into a dirt path about five meters ahead."

"Well, at least you've got SOMETHING to help," Kurumu mumbled under her breath as she continued forward cautiously. Really, if it weren't for her biting onto Tsukune every once in a while, Kurumu would start to wonder if the girl was really a vampire at all. 'Immortal ultimate monsters my ass.'

_Kchik!_ Kurumu yelped and hopped backward as a trio of arrows flew from one wall to the other, and in doing so ended up hitting Tsukune and Moka, who promptly stumbled back into Yukari, who barely caught herself from falling with an audible _Clack!_

"Clack?" Yukari bigsweated as she glanced at her foot, which had strayed from the path Kurumu had checked and was now planted on a sunken pressure plate.

_WHAM!_ Moka barely managed to pull the young witch out of the way as a huge stone block descended from the ceiling, and she had barely caught her breath from the close call before she felt her left leg sink slightly into the floor.

"RUN!" Tsukune screamed as he pulled Moka, and by extension Yukari, out of the way of a giant buzzsaw blade that rose up from the floor.

_Chak! Click! Clop!_ The four students made a mad dash down the tunnel, flailing in a panic as spears, arrows, blades, and pieces of masonry flew at them from all directions.

"Gyeee!" Kurumu squeaked in panic as she saw a massive wooden log suspended to the ceiling at each end swing down straight toward her, and she barely managed to slash forward in time to split the thing in half and clear the way for her to collapse face-first into the dirt.

_Whumph!_ Kurumu let out a grunt as the other three members of her team did the same thing, ending up in a pile with her at the bottom.

Not that it was a very heavy pile, being composed of rather scrawny specimens, and Tsukune was the one immediately on top of her so she chose not to complain.

"Are we there yet?" Yukari groaned as she got up, raising her wand into the air to illuminate their immediate surroundings.

They had landed on a small length of dirt floor that led up to a large stone door that blocked any further progress into the tunnel. Stepping closer to it, the young witch could see several stylized markings on the door arranged on a tilted axis and still visible despite layers of dust and the ravages of time. At first she thought it was some form of writing she just didn't recognize, but after analyzing it further, the markings seemed more artistic, and she became convinced she was looking at some sort of crest or emblem rather than a message.

"Hey Moka, this door is..." Yukari trailed off and her eyes narrowed in annoyance when she saw that the others were still back where they had all collapsed, wasting time as usual.

"Oh, Tsukune! I was so scared!" Kurumu wailed, crushing the boy's face into her cleavage. "Hold onto me a little longer, okay?"

"Kurumu, get up! You're not fooling anyone!" Moka demanded, looking flustered as she tried to pull Tsukune free from the succubus' grip.

"Never mind," Yukari mumbled, tracing the outer edge of the image with her finger. After a few seconds she could tell that the picture was set on a separate piece of stone set into the door, and after a few more seconds of toying with the thing, she found that it rotated.

With only a vague idea of what she was doing, she turned the wheel about until the markings were straight and symmetrical instead of tilted. And then, with an experimental push, the door creaked open.

The three students behind her promptly fell silent at the sound of stone grinding against stone, and Kurumu finally gave up her charade as they saw that the door had been opened.

After a few seconds they followed Yukari wordlessly, passing through the decrepit doorway and into the next and final room.

The room was circular and much larger than the rest of the tunnel, being about fifty meters in diameter and about just as high before one reached the rocky, crumbling ceiling. The walls were covered in all manner of glyphs and runes that Yukari immediately pegged as extensive script and everyone else supposed was the result of a five year-old's doodling after it had gotten ahold of some very long-lived and disturbingly glowy crayons.

What was of slightly greater interest was the middle of the room, which consisted of a single neat pile of speckled gray boulders which rested in the middle of another set of markings on the floor. These were of interest not only because they were glowing much more brightly than the scribbling on the wall, but also because Yukari actually recognized them.

"This is a magical prison of some kind," Yukari explained seriously as she knelt next to the magical script. "A powerful one, though it's grown a little unstable. Something dangerous is trapped in here."

"WAS trapped in here," Kurumu grumbled as she glanced around the room. "Unless this is a magical shelter for people whose pet rocks outgrew their homes."

Moka cleared her throat audibly for a moment, and then held her hands to her mouth. "Professor Jadeite! We're here!" She called.

Tsukune scratched the back of his head. "Is he really going to hear us? We left him pretty far back."

_Scratch... Scrape..._

"Who cares? We got to the end, we yelled for him, now we're done," Kurumu said in exasperation. "I was expecting, you know, SOMETHING to actually be here after we got through all the traps, but we still have everything attached so I say mission accomplished."

_Grind... Creak..._

"Does that mean we have to go back through the tunnel?" Moka asked fearfully. "How will we-"

"G-Guys?" Yukari squeaked suddenly, interrupting Moka. "H-Help?"

Turning around, the teenagers' eyes bugged out as they found the source of Yukari's distress.

The "pile of boulders" that they had dismissed earlier was slowly expanding and unfolding itself with alarming stealth considering its size.

One by one, large, scythe-like legs spread over the interior of the magical prison, revealing a huge, bulbous head with about a dozen gleaming eyes set into it like polished onyx gems. An oblong, swollen abdomen with a point at the end uncurled from under the rest of the body as a pair of short, curved fangs wiggled from underneath the head, completing the massive spider's array of appendages.

There were also a long pair of floating, two-dimensional rectangles floating over its head.

"Oh God! Run! That one has a MANA bar!" Tsukune screamed, grabbing hold of Moka and trying to drag her toward the exit.

"Wait! Yukari!" Moka cried out, reaching for the young witch as the enormous arachnid lurched forward to tackle its prey.

* * *

"Hi everyone! It's me, Shizuka, and I'm here to talk to you about spider monsters!" the spritely homeroom teacher said, her ear-like hair tufts twitching as she pointed to a blackboard with the proper diagram on it.

"First of all, before speaking about spider monsters, it's important to realize the difference between them and giant spiders! Giant spiders, while monstrous in their own right, aren't real monsters and don't have any real intelligence besides that of an animal. They can be anywhere from the size of a common rat to the size of a large dog, and their temperaments, feeding habits, web patterns, and toxicity all vary as much as that of normal spiders in the wilds of the human world."

She tapped a ruler against the blackboard, drawing attention to a diagram of a humanoid body next to the arachnid one. "Spider monsters, or 'spider people' for the politically correct, are true monsters, having heightened intelligence, strength, resilience, and the ability to take human form at will. Not particularly social creatures, they tend to have a fondness for reading and the arts. If you were to compare them to human high school students, they'd probably be those annoying Goth types, moaning about the pain of life while listening to awful grunge metal and wearing enough black to embarrass a shade."

"In battle, the spider monster likes to ambush its prey, but if finding itself in an actual fight it will usually opt to immobilize its enemy with its webs before striking with lethal poisons. Spider monsters are quick to escape if they think they're outmatched, however, using their webs and many limbs to get past difficult obstacles and get out of reach."

Shizuka then rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Finally, there's one other aspect of spider monsters that one should know: because they favor isolation, some of them take it to an extreme and become hermits, living all alone for decades. Over time, they lose many of the skills of 'civilized' monsters and forget how to speak Japanese or take human form. Eventually, they simply become wild beasts, indistinguishable from the giant spiders save for being... well... giant-er, I suppose."

She scratched her head for a moment before drawing her explanation to its conclusion. "Such individuals are rare, as they go out of their way not to be noticed, but sometimes the unwary may stumble upon them, almost inevitably while wandering through ancient ruins where they don't belong. Anybody stupid enough to do such a thing should prepare to battle the creatures, as you're sure to be mistaken for a hapless adventurer looking for gold or dragons or something."

The homeroom teacher straightened and then bowed. "And now, back to the story!"

* * *

_Whumph!_ Yukari flinched as the barrier activated right in front of her, and she stared in paralyzed terror as the massive spider's front legs pounded and clawed against the shimmering curtain of magical power.

"Yukari, are you all right?" Moka asked, pulling herself free from Tsukune so she could help the young witch up.

The pre-teen seemed a bit out of sorts, but calmed down rapidly as it became evident that the monster in the middle of the room couldn't get to her.

"I'm fine. It's fine now," she said shakily, though she didn't hesitate to clamp onto Moka when she was within reach. "The magical prison is still working. It won't get out."

The spider monster seemed to have realized this as well, and had stopped beating uselessly on the wall of magic, instead planting its front two legs up on the barrier while it stared down at Yukari and Moka and wiggled its fangs meaningfully.

Kurumu let out a sigh of relief. "Well, okay, so there is something here. Although it's weird that someone would put all this together to imprison a big spider."

"That's because they didn't," said Jadeite, startling the students as he walked into the chamber with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Professor Jadeite! There you are!" Tsukune said, uncertain whether he was happy to see the Dark General or not. "We reached the end, like you asked..."

"Yes, you did. Congratulations," Jadeite said negligently as he stepped up next to the barrier and stared at the magical runes on the floor. "I must admit though, this was not what I was expecting."

"Why? What were you expecting?" Moka asked cautiously.

"This well is actually a hiding place for Malathus, an abomination created by the witches centuries ago," Jadeite explained as he circled the magic prison, startling Yukari. "Malathus was supposedly a magical focus of pestilence and disease, used as a living weapon against the humans in Europe back before the days of modern medicine. If I recall the records right, its greatest success was the Black Death infections that eventually culled a full quarter of the population from the entire continent."

The four students looked utterly horrorstruck at the revelation, not least of which was Yukari, who had turned a rather ashen white.

"Well... they... must have had a good reason... right?" she asked hoarsely.

"One never needs a good reason to kill humans," Jadeite offered as he completed his circuit around the trapped arachnid, "bloody wasteful though it was. After the humans got the hang of handling pandemics, however, it became obvious that Malathus wouldn't be able to cause that kind of damage again and he was sealed away here."

"Then... that means..." Tsukune looked up the towering, mottled gray spider in trepidation. "That means that this spider is some sort of walking epidemic?"

"No," Jadeite said simply. "You see, Malathus' body was made to resemble an enormous fly to more appropriately symbolize filth and disease."

"Then... THAT means..." Kurumu began.

"Yes," Jadeite said simply. "A spider monster wandered in here after it was sealed, ate Malathus, and then went into hibernation after it realized it was trapped."

The students sweatdropped as they stared up at the spider monster, who still hadn't budged from its earlier threatening pose over Yukari.

"So... now what?" Tsukune asked, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, my original plan is no good, but we do still have an enormous spider monster. That's something, I suppose," Jadeite mumbled before snapping his fingers and pointing to the beast. "Capture it."

"Wh... What?" Tsukune asked, his mouth agape.

"This magical wall is one-way; it will keep things in, but you should have no difficulty entering. Once you are inside, I will wait until you have subdued the beast and then destroy the barrier," Jadeite said calmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

The four students all stared at the club host, then stared at the massive arachnid towering over them. It was easily bigger than any car Tsukune had ever seen, and each of its legs were bigger than he was. He had seen quite a few unnaturally large spiders in his time at Youkai, but never one that could step on him rather than the other way around.

"I have some concerns with this plan," Tsukune said nervously, "and they all have to do with us being within biting range of that thing."

"There's no need!" Yukari said suddenly, reaching under her cape and pulling out what appeared to be a pair of large tarot cards. "Don't worry Moka, I'll handle this! Hyah!"

With a fancy flourish, the young witch hurled the cards through the air at the massive spider, the magical, razor-sharp projectiles sailing straight through the boundary of the prison and flying with perfect accuracy toward the joints of the monster's legs.

_Skrak! Skrak!_ Both of the cards bounced off the rock-hard chitin protecting the beast, and Yukari sweatdropped as her weapons tumbled onto the floor. The spider continued its motionless vigil, unbothered by the attack.

"Okay, yeah, this is NOT happening," Kurumu said as she turned to Jadeite in frustration. "There's no way we can stop that thing! It's impossible!"

The Dark General frowned at her. "Impossible, you say? I don't like to hear such pessimism from my serva... that is, my students," he corrected quickly, raising a hand toward the Kurumu. "Perhaps you need some... motivation."

"Kurumu!" Tsukune gasped as Jadeite's hands started to glow malevolently.

'Ranma, I sure hope you know what you're talking about,' the succubus thought to herself as she reached into her pocket. 'I was hoping I wouldn't have to do something this silly, but...' A moment later she hurled something across the room and into the middle of the circle, right next to the massive spider.

The other students stared. It seemed to be one of those sand-filled rubber stress balls, except that it had undergone numerous repairs and had been done up to resemble a human face. It had big googly eyes glued on above a big dumb grin done in permanent black marker, and it was topped with a tiara and a well-crafted blond wig with twin ponytails hanging from two odangoes.

None of the students could make any sense of the thing, but Kurumu noticed that Jadeite's power instantly winked out and his eyes went glassy the moment he saw the object.

"You wannit? You wannit?" the succubus said in a high-pitched voice that most people used to tease their pets or children. "Go giddit!"

"GRAWR!" Jadeite immediately leapt into the magical barrier and tackled the stress ball, any modicum of control or dignity gone. "Grrr! Raw! Hrrgh!" With the ball in his hands, he started scratching and beating at the thing, eventually biting onto one end and trying to tear it apart in his teeth.

The students all watched with expressions ranging from surprised to disturbed.

"Does he have post-traumatic stress disorder or something?" Yukari asked.

"If he doesn't now, he will soon," mumbled Tsukune as the massive spider slowly turned around to face the snarling, rabid teacher.

"We... We should leave now," Moka ventured, hugging Yukari close as she headed for the entrance tunnel.

"Definitely. Come on, Tsukune," Kurumu said as she grabbed onto her beloved and followed Moka.

"Grrrm! Om grom nom nom!" Jadeite chewed ferociously at the well-patched rubber of the stress ball, and then tugged his jaw to the side as he pulled at the ball, stretching it to its limit.

_Pap!_ The rubber promptly ripped apart, spraying sand all about as the rubber went slack in Jadeite's hands.

The Dark General blinked a few times, his vision turning clear as his mind emerged from its rabid haze.

"What? What just happened?" he asked quietly, staring at the rubber strips in his hand that no longer resembled a face.

_Plip!_ He flinched as he felt something thick and wet fall onto his head, dribbling down over one ear.

Glancing up, he found that the enormous gray-mottled spider monster was now standing over his back, its powerful venom dribbling from its fangs in anticipation of its next meal.

"Wait... where am I?" were Jadeite's last, confused words before the mandibles descended on him.

* * *

End Chapter 3

Note: Frank Madaraki is from the comic Franken Fran (Google it!) while Riza Wildman is from the series Princess Resurrection. Both are good, but knowledge of those series isn't important to enjoy this story.  
Yukari Sendo is from the actual Rosario plus Vampire canon, for those of you who don't know the series but read this anyway.

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

_Whock!_ The clean smack of a metal club striking a plastic ball rang across the green as the ball sailed through the air in smooth, flawless arc.

_Bok!_ Upon striking ground, it bounced lightly past the hole at the end of the course before stopping at a rest against a small, dry twig.

"Nice shot," said Richard, leaning against a little electric cart at the edge of the green.

Well, "green" was the technical term. Being that this was still around Youkai Academy, the territory was all dry, dusty badlands with a hole and a flag planted at the end of a particularly barren stretch of dirt.

Still, it seemed to make for a decent enough golf course, and the headmaster grinned to himself as he placed his club back into the bag being held by one of his bodyguards. "This hole is par three, Professor. You're going to have a hard time catching up if I can make it in two strokes."

Richard snorted. "If you manage two strokes on a par three hole, may I be struck by lightning and then immediately transmit the lightning to the nearest innocent bystander." The guard holding the headmaster's golf bag flinched. "Yeah, that's right. I'm looking at you, Phil," the warlock warned.

"That's Steven. You killed Philip last week," the headmaster said as he started across the green, gesturing for his opponent to follow.

Richard did follow, though he stared closely at the man in a suit and sunglasses the whole time. "Do you grow these people in vats or something? How do you even tell them apart?"

"Now now, I can't reveal ALL my secrets, old friend," the headmaster said gently, his eyes gleaming from deep within the shadows of his hood.

"You DO grow them in vats, don't you?" Richard deadpanned.

"Yes," the headmaster admitted. "So, how's classes?"

"Interesting," Richard said. "It's unusual for me to still have much of a freshman class by the time club signups roll around, but here we are."

The headmaster nodded for the warlock to continue as he reached his ball and pulled out his putter.

"There's this one kid in particular that's just a riot. Name is Satomi or something. Bounces back no matter what I throw at him and keeps me from killing off everyone else in the class. But best of all, if you ask what kind of monster he is, this kid actually tells you he's human! It's getting to the point that I'm starting to think he believes it!" Richard gave a short chuckle, and then raised his eyebrow at his opponent. "You don't know anything about that, do you?"

The headmaster's grin stretched wider. "Perhaps..."

"That would be a no, then," Richard guessed.

_Pok!_ "That would be a no," the headmaster confirmed as his putt rolled deftly into the hole. "Oh, shit!" the bodyguard said, turning around to run as several thunderclouds started rolling about over Richard's head.

_Cracka-boom!_ Lightning surged downward into the warlock's body, and the undead mage chuckled darkly before thrusting his palm at the retreating henchman. _BZZZZAP!_

The headmaster waited patiently until the smoke parted to reveal the charred skeleton of his servant, and then wordlessly stepped up to the bag of clubs that was still strapped to the body's back (and mysteriously unharmed by the lightning) to put away his putter.

"You used to at least wait until the fourth hole before you made me carry my own bags," the headmaster said almost sadly, though he was still grinning.

"You could stand to lose some weight. You don't get out much anymore," the warlock said, his hands glowing with dark power as they headed back to the start of the green. "Summon vorpal nine-iron!"

Pure, chaotic darkness coalesced into the undead mage's hand before shaping itself an imitation of a gold club, the black energies sparking and writhing as they tried desperately to annihilate everything around them.

"A vorpal golf club?" the headmaster deadpanned as Richard took up his stance. "That goes beyond the realm of overkill and across the line to pointless."

"It's mostly just for the plus five to hit," the undead mage explained, lining up the club and then swinging mightily. _Bzock!_

The smouldering golf ball sailed over the green, a path of smoke and flickering dark magic marking its path.

"Yes..." Richard mumbled as the ball approached the hole.

_Bok!_

"Yes..." he said again as the ball bounced just a few feet from the hole and kept bouncing directly toward it.

_Bap, bop!_

"Yes!" he shouted as the ball rolled straight toward the lip of the hole which was his goal.

_BWOOOOM!!_

"No..." the warlock said sadly as an enormous magical detonation rocked the Earth and the hole vanished within a cloud of dirt, rock, and dark fire.

"Back! Back, you foolish beast!" Snarled Jadeite as he staggered away from the new smoldering crater he had created, blood running down his forehead and back and one of his arms stuck to his side with webbing. His free hand was freely releasing small bolts of darkness behind him haphazardly, trying to cover his escape.

Charging through the rain of black magic and weathering the assault surprisingly well was a gigantic spider with a gray mottled carapace that resembled rock. Much of that carapace was charred and there were more than a few bloody cracks here and there, but for the most part the arachnid seemed in good enough shape to keep trying to kill its wily foodstuff.

_Bwap!_ Richard didn't move immediately when his golf ball bounced off of his head, although his eye twitched when he heard it land behind him.

"Hmmm... it looks like you actually lost two meters in that drive," the headmaster said, his grin widening again. "Oh well. If you can manage a shot like that again, I'm sure you can match me."

"Give me a minute to clear the green of... hazards," Richard said dangerously, taking up the vorpal golf club in his hands as it thirsted for destruction within his grasp. 


	5. Pranks a Lot

A grinning Shizuka Nekonome waved happily. "Hello everyone! I can't believe it's Chapter 4 already! And that means it's time to take another crack at guessing Ranma Saotome's true species!"

The nekomata gestured next to her, where several large machines were crammed next to each other in their effort to maintain the life of what appeared to be a large, shriveled black husk.

"Today we'll be asking the opinion of the nameless victim that dropped out of the exploration club before its first expedition! He's not in the best of shape thanks to serious skeletal trauma and..."

Shizuka stopped speaking and looked over a clipboard that had been left on top of a pulse monitor. "And... sixth degree burns? There are sixth degree burns?"

"It's a rare state of injury when a flame actually scorches the ambient life energy that sustains the body beyond the physical veil," calmly explained Fran Madaraki as she wheeled another machine up next to the iron lung that the brutalized student was kept in. "Medical science has yet to provide a treatment for supraphysical psychimmolation, or 'soul scorching' as it's known in laymen's terms, but I've contacted several priests for possible alternative medicine solutions."

The reanimated blonde started attaching electrodes to what Shizuka was barely able to identify as the victim's head. "And what's this, now?"

"This device will translate the necessary nervous impulses that would normally allow for speech and translate them into writing for the convenience of communication," Fran said with a smile as she activated the machine. "I have other burn patients to treat now."

With a gentle bow, the school nurse turned on her heel and walked off, leaving the remains of the student alone with the doubtful-looking teacher.

"Well, let's give it a try," Shizuka said, tapping the machine. "After your encounter with Ranma, what's your guess as to his species?"

The husk twitched and writhed slightly, and a whirring noise came from the communications device as a strip of paper started printing.

Shizuka took the paper and read it aloud. "More painkillers, please."

She frowned at the burn patient. "Come on, now. That had NOTHING to do with Ranma."

The printer started up again, and Shizuka read it as it came out. "If I never see that bastard again, it'll be too soon. I swear that freak must be a werewolf."

The nekomata brightened. "Ah! A werewolf! Why's that?"

She waited for more of the student's thoughts to print out before speaking again. "Bastard's fast. Too fast. But what's more is that he's apparently pretty protective of his friends. You don't see a lot of that, but it's a common attitude among werewolves."

Shizuka nodded solemnly. "Ah, yes. A surprisingly thoughtful answer, whatever-your-name-is."

The printer started spitting out more paper, but Shizuka had already turned away, ignoring the device and the injured monster attached to it.

"Another session of guessing Ranma's species comes to a close! See you next time!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: Yeah, I've got nothing.

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 4  
Pranks a Lot

* * *

"I'm still not quite clear on how this happened..." Jadeite mumbled to himself.

Kurumu whistled innocently to herself as she rocked back and forth on her heels, trying desperately to hide a victorious smile. Moka and Yukari were on the left of the succubus, the latter clamped firmly onto the former, with Tsukune and Ranma at the front of the group that had come to visit the professor.

As for the Dark General himself, he had bandages wrapped around his chest, but otherwise looked quite pristine and seemed perfectly lucid for a man that had suffered six hours of mostly experimental surgery and veritable cocktail of medical drugs and toxin reactants.

Tsukune chuckled weakly as he tried to avoid eye contact with the patient. "We're not really sure either... I mean, the exploration was over and we all headed back-"

"Just like you told us!" Kurumu added quickly.

"Yes, just like you told us," Tsukune lied, "we got back to school, and then the next day, we hear you're in the infirmary suffering from an icicle lodged in your chest and severe poisoning. We're just... uh... glad you're okay."

The last line was obviously false, but if Jadeite noticed he certainly didn't care.

"Fair enough. Except that I'm not in the infirmary." Jadeite's eyes narrowed. "Would someone care to explain why I'm being treated in the gym storage locker?" Indeed, the Dark General was currently resting upon a stack of gym mats with a trio of pulse monitors stacked upon a cage full of basketballs.

"Dunno about that," Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head. He wasn't really involved in this incident directly, but had come along as moral support (and physical back-up) for Tsukune's sake. "I heard the medical wing had a fire or something, and any rooms that survived are probably being used by the people hurt in the fire. Lousy timing, that's for sure."

Jadeite's face darkened appropriately as the members of his club stared at him knowingly. "I see... I... I suppose it can't be helped, then."

"Professor Jadeite? We were wondering if, perhaps, it was possible for us to switch out of your club now, since... well... you won't be in any shape to host our activities soon," Moka asked carefully.

The Dark General snorted. "Don't be absurd. I'll be fully recovered soon enough. Wounds such as these can't-"

He was suddenly interrupted by a constant, high-pitched beep as one of monitors next to him flatlined, causing Jadeite to seize up as pain flared in his chest.

"Wh-What's wrong? Is he dying?" Tsukune asked in a panic, not knowing what to do.

"Cross your fingers, girls," Kurumu whispered before suiting actions to words.

Ranma, for his part, stared at the monitors in confusion until the door opened a few seconds later, admitting Fran Madaraki into the room.

"Remain calm, please. The professor is in very little actual danger," Fran said in an almost disinterested voice to the students as she stepped up to the stack of gym mats, missing the disappointed expression on Kurumu's face and the mildly guilty one on Moka's. "He's been suffering periodic heart failure ever since the surgery, and I've already compensated appropriately." She snapped her fingers over her head, and after a moment one of the hulking nurse's assistants appeared carrying a pair of defibrillator paddles.

"Yeah, about that..." Ranma mumbled. "Why does the prof have three heart monitors?"

Ranma couldn't be considered an expert or even a novice when it came to medicine, but over his lifetime he had been hooked up to and put through enough of the machines common to modern hospitals to the point that he could recognize most of them after a few seconds' observation, even allowing for differences in models and leaps in technology. From what he could tell, Jadeite was hooked up to three machines that all did the same thing, and yet were giving different readings.

Fran smiled gently as she took the paddles from her assistant and started rubbing them together. "Professor Jadeite has a monitor for each heart, that's all. Clear."

_Bvrt!_ The students all shared a confused glance as the nurse pressed the paddles onto one side of the Dark General's chest.

"You're saying you put two hearts in him?" Tsukune asked. He supposed it was possible that the man had three hearts to start with, but somehow it seemed unlikely to him.

Fran nodded slightly upon seeing the first of the three monitors stabilize, and then turned toward the curious students. "Technically, I put three hearts in Professor Jadeite. The one he had was unusable after being punctured by a spinning forty-two millimeter icicle spike, to say nothing of the concentrations of necrotic toxins that built up within the organ previous to the critical injury." She handed the paddles back to her assistant, who wordlessly took the device out of the room. "The additional circulatory centers were necessary after the venom spread completely throughout Professor Jadeite's body. Even after heavy doses of anti-agents, many parts of his body are still experiencing sudden, uneven swelling and putting sudden pressure on major arteries. The additional muscle power added to the blood pressure ensures that the blood flow remains healthy at all times without putting too much stress on any one heart."

Most of the students there were either too impressed or weirded out to come up with an immediate response, but not Ranma.

"You're telling me you wasted three perfectly good human hearts on this jerk?" the pigtailed boy asked, ignoring the glare he got from the teacher in question.

"Oh, no, I didn't use human hearts," Fran responded promptly. "As you said, they're far too valuable to be used so carelessly. I used a few spare organs harvested from some test primates in the science club."

"You used monkey hearts?" Tsukune asked, looking a bit disgusted. "Are those as good as human hearts?"

Fran shrugged. "Eh."

Jadeite would have certainly inflicted a great deal of magical havoc then and there if he weren't teetering on the edge of cardiac arrest, but in his current state it was difficult enough trying not to show his relief that none of his club members were vindictive (or sensible) enough to finish him off while he was still weak. "Nurse, you needn't go into further details about my current condition. I'm sure it's quite enough that my students know I'm still alive and well."

"Yeah, sure," Ranma said unconvincingly. "Also, I just wanted to make sure me and the runt are clear to skip Demon Hunter class this week." Yukari's eyes narrowed at the form of address, but she was far more interested in a free period than she was in defending her bodily proportions and thus remained quiet.

Jadeite snorted. "I will not be able to lecture, but you are to attend class and inform the rest of the students that you are all to read chapters mmmrph mmff hrm!" the Dark General's directions gave way to incoherent mumbling as Ranma crammed a handful of cotton balls in his mouth.

"What was that, Prof? Sounded like you said 'free study period'," Ranma lied, his unconcerned gaze meeting Jadeite's dark glare unflinchingly. "I'll let everyone else know. You just rest up, okay?"

"Mister Saotome, please don't waste our medical supplies," Fran said disapprovingly. "We lost a considerable portion of our inventory in the fire, and large orders are difficult to get delivered here," she chided. She didn't remove the cotton, though.

"Okay, sorry about that," the pigtailed boy offered before turning toward the others. "You guys ready to go?"

Several silent nods greeted the question, and Ranma led the small party out of the room, Kurumu clinging to Tsukune behind him and Yukari clinging to Moka at the rear.

"I hope for your sake they've rebuilt enough of the infirmary by the time Professor Jadeite recovers," Yukari piped up as they wandered far enough away from the gym. "Assuming there's enough left of you for the nurse to stitch back together, that is."

"You DO seem a little quick to provoke the teachers, Ranma," Moka added. "I won't say they don't deserve it, but... well, are you looking to start a fight?"

The pigtailed boy snorted. "You've got it wrong. Guys like Jadeite and Saizo... I know their kind. They're bullies, is all. They target the weak, but won't touch anybody who might be stronger than they are. Standing up to them is the way to **prevent** a fight."

"The dangerous point of your reasoning is the underlying assumption that you're stronger than Jadeite," Yukari noted with obvious skepticism.

Ranma snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I can take that clown any day. Heck, I'd be happy to. Teach him to push my friends around and drag them into trap-infested ruins..."

"Well, there's no point in dwelling on it, is there?" Tsukune asked, wanting to get off the topic. Hearing Ranma talk about standing up to the overpowered psychotics they called teachers only reminded him how utterly helpless he was before the likes of someone like Jadeite. "We have some time before class, do you guys feel like eating?"

"Always!" Ranma cheered.

"Come on, Moka!" Yukari said as she started to tug the vampiress aside. "Let's go eat somewhere else!"

Moka cringed as she looked over at Tsukune, Ranma, and Kurumu; the first looking disenheartened, the second looking apathetic, and the third looking rather smug. "Yukari, why don't we eat with the others? It's more fun with more people!"

Yukari shook her head forcefully. "Forget it! You don't need those morons! Come with me!"

Moka gave Tsukune a distressed look, but as much as the boy wanted to pry Yukari off of the vampiress, all he could do was shrug; Yukari wouldn't listen to him at all, and he didn't want to risk offending Moka by trying to get rid of the magical pest that had clamped onto her like a barnacle.

Ranma, however, had no compunctions, and after a good ten seconds of indecision, a vein popped up on his head. "What are we waiting for? Let's go already!" He slapped a hand onto Tsukune's shoulder - opposite the arm Kurumu was holding - and started pushing the pair to the lunch room.

"Hey! Don't be so pushy!" Moka complained as she finally made her decision and followed the others, much to Yukari's annoyance.

"I'm not bein' pushy," Ranma shot back over his shoulder, "you can eat where you want, but I 'aint gonna wait for you and the shrimp."

"Why are you always so rude?" the vampiress demanded, her temper starting to show. Not that she had much in the way of temper, but if there was one person who could bring it out it was Ranma.

Yukari snorted, eager to answer that question and belittle the unworthy parasites that Moka had mercifully accepted as friends. "You shouldn't expect anything better from a clueless barbarian like him."

Ranma snorted right back, accepting the preteen's unspoken challenge. "Then I guess I have an excuse, at least. What's yours, Miss Honor Student?"

Yukari's eye twitched before she cleared her throat. "It's not my fault! I happen to have a crippling allergic reaction to **idiots**."

Kurumu rolled her eyes as the witch and the martial artist locked glares, their fight intensifying. She would have gladly left with Tsukune and eaten with him alone, but it seemed that both he and Moka were getting quite anxious about the confrontation.

"H-Hey, Ranma, come on, let's just go. It's not worth it," Tsukune said meekly from behind the pigtailed boy.

"Yukari, calm down, please," Moka fairly begged, thoroughly regretting her earlier remark. Yukari seemed to pick up on her annoyance like a dog defending its owner, and seemed set on straightening out the older of the two humans.

"I really can't fathom you at all," Yukari spat, staring almost straight upward into Ranma's eyes. "How a violent dolt like yourself could be accepted into Moka's glorious presence and not weep in gratitude astounds me."

"I'm just as confused as to how a midget like you gets to class without getting stepped on," Ranma snapped back, his arms crossed over his chest.

"You think you can get away with underestimating me?" the pre-teen demanded, pointing up at the pigtailed boy. "You'd best apologize while you still can, you ape!"

"And what're you gonna do, pipsqueak?" Ranma asked, smirking, "turn me into a newt?"

"I wouldn't waste such an expensive curse on the likes of **you**," Yukari snapped, backing away a step. "However, your continued harassment of my beloved Moka ends TODAY!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow as Yukari rummaged about under her cape for a moment.

"Behold the key to your defeat!" she shouted as she took out a pink rod with a jeweled heart on the end. "The witch's HEY!"

Yukari's enraged shout came as a result of Ranma nimbly plucking the rod out of her hand and then holding it up out of the girl's reach as he inspected it. "Ugh. How can a witch carry around something this girly? I thought you were supposed to be spooky and wise and stuff."

"Give that back, you gorilla!" Yukari growled as she started hopping up and down for her item.

"No way," Ranma said, his eyes narrowing. He knew from experience not to let little girls come at him with harmless-looking objects if he could help it. Miss Hinako had at least managed to teach him THAT, if little else.

"I'm serious! Give it!" Yukari howled, hopping up and down around the pigtailed boy as he held it up above his head.

"Ranma, stop being so mean! She's just a child!" Moka said disapprovingly.

"She's not 'just a child,' she's a **witch**!" Ranma scoffed. "Who knows what she'll do if you let her run wild?"

Yukari tensed up at Ranma's words, and then she grit her teeth. "I said... Give. It. BACK!" she punctuated her demand with a swift kick to Ranma's shins, which apparently surprised the martial artist such that he didn't even attempt to dodge.

Not that it was necessary. Ranma sweatdropped as Yukari bounced on one leg, grimacing in pain as she held her damaged foot.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! You creep! Ow! Ow! OW!"

"RANMA!" Moka almost snarled, causing the pigtailed man to flinch from the sudden change in tone. Moka had been annoyed and disgusted with him before, but this was the first time she actually seemed angry. "How dare you!"

"How dare I what?" Ranma asked, his voice wavering slightly. "She kicked me!" The defective assault had even hurt slightly, though Ranma didn't bother to say so. He doubted he was going to get any sympathy out of the vampiress, no matter what Yukari did to him.

Moka immediately snatched the witch's wand from Ranma's hand and then leaned down in front of Yukari, who looked like she was trying to hold back tears. "There, there... are you okay? You didn't sprain anything, did you?"

Ranma's face flushed as he stood rooted to the spot behind the two girls, his rational mind trying desperately to hold back a surging tide of guilt. 'Man, this is like P-chan all over again. What, just because she's small and cute makes it okay to attack me? It wasn't my fault! I mean, maybe the name calling... well, it wasn't like... I mean, she's the one who...' Then the pigtailed boy sighed. 'Oh, why do I even bother?'

"I'm sorry," Ranma said suddenly, straightening and then bowing before the girls who suddenly gave him their full attention. "I didn't mean to... well... I went too far, and that's that," he mumbled as he kept his eyes staring downward.

Moka sat speechless for a moment, her emotions warring within her. To be sure, she was still angry at Ranma's treatment of a little girl, no matter what she tried to do to him, but on the other hand, he seemed genuinely remorseful in apologizing for his crude behavior. It was her policy not to forgive bullying, but then, Ranma wasn't really a bully, was he?

It wasn't a particularly deep mental conundrum, but it was distracting enough that she was surprised to find that Yukari's wand had vanished from her grasp.

Ranma, for his part, finally straightened and then turned around, intent on leaving immediately. He could admit fault in a situation where it wasn't his own - it was a skill one acquired quickly when living with the Tendos - but if Moka was seriously going to get on his case for defending himself so passively, then he'd rather avoid the irritating couple entirely.

'Huh. That's weird. When did Tsukune and Kurumu take off?' the pigtailed boy wondered. Not that he blamed them for departing such a childish and awkward confrontation. 'Wait, what's that noise?'

_Clang!_ Ranma winced as something large, flat, and metal landed on his head, and he cracked an eye open as the object slid off of his skull and dropped noisily onto the floor.

"A... wash bin?" he asked, perplexed. He was in the middle of the hall; there was nothing above him but solid ceiling. Where did something like that come from?

_Whap!_ He winced again as he felt something hard smack him on the back of his neck, and then whirled around to grab the weapon before his assailant could retract it properly.

He was surprised and considerably annoyed when he found himself holding a broom. A broom that wasn't being held by anyone else, and quivered in his hand like it was trying to get free.

After seeing this, he wasn't very surprised at all once he saw Yukari standing well outside of lunging range, pointing her stupid-looking wand at him.

"You think I'll forgive you so easily?" Yukari said, glaring at the martial artist as she swept her wand about with a flourish.

"When you get right down to it, no, I didn't really think so," Ranma grumbled.

* * *

"Hi everyone! Welcome to another installment of the monster encyclopedia!" Shizuka Nekonome said happily as she stood in front of a chalkboard. "Today we're going to discuss witches!"

She pointed to a chalk outline of a cloaked figure with a sharply pointed hat. "Witches aren't real monsters, but tend to associate equally with monsters and humans. This is possible only thanks to their magical powers, which allow them to defend themselves against monsters, and their being biologically identical to humans, which allows them to blend in without all the hassle that most monsters have to deal with."

Shizuka's smile drooped into a frown. "While witches can pass for either monsters or humans when they need to, as a result they suffer from some discrimination on both sides. Some monsters think of them as uppity humans who don't know their place, and treat them accordingly. On the human side, whenever a witch doesn't hide her powers she runs the risk of being attacked by religious fanatics or frightened locals."

She then pointed at another chalk drawing of a witch tied to a post above a fire with X's for eyes. "Really though, discrimination among humans is rather rare nowadays, as people are far less superstitious and the laws far less concerned with magic powers than it is with the lynch mobs themselves. Although much is made of the witch trials way back when, such things are almost unheard of nowadays. Besides, most of the people that were killed in witch hunts were humans anyway. Any half-decent witch could evade a bunch of humans easily, and even the ones who weren't half-decent could usually find a way out of those stupid witch tests. Feh."

Shizuka moved to the next picture on the board, which was a pentagram with a lightning bolt drawn in the middle. "Witches are exclusively magic-users, of course, and they specialize in curses. While the witch usually has a quicker spell on hand for when she gets cornered, their real strength lies in more complex magics than your standard goodness-gracious great-balls-o-fire. A skilled witch can utterly destroy an enemy she's never met with no more than a name, a photo, five minutes and a seemingly random collection of amphibian organs. They also have a number of other skills, ranging from potion brewing to magical beast husbandry, which at least makes them one of the more entrepreneurial monsters around, if nothing else."

Shizuka shook her head. "Of course, it's not recommended that you get into conflicts with any monsters, but witches can be particularly cruel and vindictive in their grudges, and can carry out their revenge with impunity, depending on the witch's individual magic skill. If you do manage to offend one, it's recommended that you take offensive action immediately, ideally to strip the witch of its magical item, which is the source of its power. Whatever you do, DON'T fall for any stupid sympathy ploys or hold back because your opponent is a beautiful woman or a child or anything like that. Doing so can be FATAL, and it's not like the prejudiced, spiteful wenches deserve any of the fairness or sympathy they're always demanding while turning helpless victims into lizards and such. Don't hold back!"

The cat-like teacher smiled and bowed. "And now we return the conflict already in progress."

* * *

Ranma licked his dry lips as he took note of all the objects rising into the air around him. 'Okay. Two buckets at five o'clock, three more brooms in front, and I think the locker next to me is about to lift off. This is totally doable. She isn't a real threa-'

_Clang!_ His train of thought was viciously derailed as another metal wash bin descended onto his head. "Ow! Where the hell do those things keep coming from?" he shouted irritably as the other floating objects all converged on him at once. "Hey! Stop!"

_Whang! Whap! Thwack!_

"Ow! Knock it off!"

Ranma managed to leap out from underneath the blanket of pain just before a much heavier bucket floated upward and upended a great deal of water, barely missing its target.

"Cut it out, you brat!" the pigtailed boy shouted as he began a full retreat, dashing down the hall.

"You won't get away from me!" Yukari shouted, giving chase as a veritable army of brooms, buckets, chairs, and a few other random objects floated, careened, or haphazardly bounced down the corridor after her victim.

Moka remained behind as the pair dashed down the hall, her expression carefully neutral. 'That... didn't quite go as I had expected. I hope I did the right thing...'

* * *

In the lunch room, the mood surrounding Kurumu and Tsukune was rather glum despite the former's persistent attempts to cheer up the latter. Kurumu had snuck the both of them away from the confrontation when she'd gotten the chance, seeing a crucial opportunity to eat alone with the boy, but it seemed his mind was firmly set on Moka's behavior earlier.

"I don't know what to do about her anymore," Tsukune groused, poking at some hamburger steak half-heartedly. "It doesn't bother me if Moka has friends that don't like me, but Yukari just goes way too far!"

Kurumu shrugged as she swallowed a mouthful of noodles. "She's a witch all right, through and through. Petty and spiteful as they come."

A less tactful person might have mentioned that Yukari's name-calling and vindictive protectiveness hardly seemed any more petty and spiteful than Kurumu's attempts to seduce him to get at Moka, but Tsukune held his tongue.

"What do you mean by that? Is there something special about witches?" Tsukune asked, turning away from his food.

"Witches are very unpopular among monsters," Kurumu explained solemnly. "Because witches are so similar to humans, they suffer a lot of prejudice and some monsters treat them like outcasts. It's no wonder she latched on to Moka like that; I seriously doubt she has any other friends on campus."

Tsukune felt a bit guilty at hearing that, but the explanation hardly compensated for the abuse that the preteen witch heaped upon him and Ranma.

"Personally, I'm surprised Sendo is still alive and in one piece," Kurumu admitted after another bite of her food. "I heard she loves pranks and tricks, and she's quick to make enemies. Her childish attitude combined with being brilliant makes her come off as annoying, too. I mean, besides being a witch, going out of your way to irritate people is a good way to get ventilated."

Tsukune was silent for a few seconds before he scratched his head. "So... how do you know that people are really prejudiced against her if she has an irritating personality and makes lots of enemies?"

Kurumu sweatdropped. "That's... uh... a good point," she admitted. "I guess Sendo doesn't really have the excuse of being a witch if people don't like her. But anyway, since Moka actually accepts her, it's only natural that the little brat is going to get so protective. You might want to give up on spending time with Moka or she could do something you'll regret." The succubus tried her best to make the suggestion sound serious and unbiased, but she couldn't help the smirk that crossed her face.

Tsukune frowned. "Like what? Witch or not, she's still a little girl. What could she do to me besides yell insults?"

_CRASH!_ "Whoa! Hey! You're gonna put someone's eye out or something!" _Bam!_

Tsukune and Kurumu whirled to face the entrance to the cafeteria - along with everybody else there - as the disastrous noises came closer and closer.

"Yipes!" Ranma leapt into the cafeteria as a fire hose darted under his feet while twisting about like a snake, trying to ensnare the nimble martial artist to make him a more convenient target. "Hey, people might need that! What if the nurse's office has another fire?" He complained as he landed on one of the lunch tables, startling a group of boys that were eating there.

Yukari burst in the room a moment later, flanked on either side by floating fire extinguishers. "There's nowhere left to run!"

Ranma glanced down at the table he was standing on. 'Huh. Bento, bento, soda, salad, knife, bento, soda, knife, perfect.'

With a quick snap of his ankle, both dinner knives were sent up into the air, and Ranma snatched them up just as Yukari aimed the extinguishers and started to send them forward.

_Twang! Ptang! SHPYOOOOOOOO!_ Yukari yelped as a pair of knives penetrated the necks of the fire extinguishers, causing jets of foam to burst forth and send both of her weapons rocketing backward back into the hall.

"Ha! That all you got?" Ranma boasted, making sure to keep an eye out above him for any more mysterious wash bins.

Yukari took a moment to pat the extinguisher dust off of her cape, and then almost casually flicked her wand in Ranma's direction.

_Splack! Splut! Goosh!_ Ranma's victorious expression vanished as the three lunch trays at his feet suddenly jumped up onto him, mashing their contents against his torso and face.

"Ha ha! How do you like that?" Yukari crowed, her expression widening into a grin. "Mess with me, and I'll... uh... I'll..."

The young witch trailed off nervously as she saw the three students sitting around Ranma stand up and turn toward her, their expressions grim. The martial artist himself hadn't moved, still busy berating himself mentally for letting his guard down and being humiliated like this.

"Hey, Sendo, what do you think you're doing?" the largest of the trio growled as he cracked his knuckles.

"People are trying to EAT here, and you just barge in and start making a mess," said the second as he glared down at the pre-teen.

"And now you've gone and ruined our meals," snapped the last, a nervous tic in his eye. "So, how are you going to pay us back for this? Will it be money, or are we just gonna have to take it out of your hide?"

Yukari's courage began to seep away as she glanced around and realized that she had left Moka far behind. "G-Get real! I'm not paying for anything!"

"Oh, you're gonna pay all right," the largest boy said, stepping forward with his hands clenched into fists.

The boy stopped short, however, as he felt someone grab onto his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, that's enough," Ranma said, idly wiping some teriyaki chicken off of his nose. "This is between me an' her. You stay out of it."

The trio hesitated, shooting each other uncertain looks. Beating up Yukari Sendo was one thing; she was an irritation to everyone who knew her and much less dangerous than most of her peers. Ranma Saotome was a much different story; his reputation for having wiped the floor with a few of the seedier punks around campus and standing up to some of the nastier teachers had earned him a great deal of respect among the monsters, and nobody wanted to start a fight with him unless they were absolutely committed to his defeat. Hardly the sort of person you attacked for causing a mess in the cafeteria.

"Now hold on a minute," the larger boy said, his expression calming as he turned to face the pigtailed boy, "this may not be any of our business, but what about our lunches? You can't tell me we should just let her get away with that?" Of course he was careful to imply that it was Yukari who was totally at fault here. Always better to side with the winning team in a conflict.

Ranma frowned as he considered the argument, admitting to himself that it had merit. Still... "Hey, is this yours?" he asked suddenly, pointing to a croquette that was stuck to his shoulder.

The other student raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

Ranma promptly took the croquette off his shoulder and then crammed it in the boy's mouth.

Looking quite satisfied as the boy started hacking and coughing painfully, Ranma turned slightly to face the other two victims of Yukari's prank. "You guys want your food back too?"

They shook their heads rapidly, and then took their friend by the arms to drag him off to someone who knew the Heimlich maneuver.

Yukari frowned as Ranma turned back to her, still trying to wipe away all the food and gunk that had been smeared all over him. "Wh-What? Do you expect me to th-thank you or something?"

"Of course not. Why would I expect something silly like that?" Ranma grumbled. "Whatever. Are you satisfied now? You've ruined an outfit, messed up my day, and even managed to piss off three other guys that had nothing to do with this. You should quit while you're ahead, I think."

The preteen witch scowled and pointed her wand at Ranma in defiance. "Don't think you can get off so easily! Your treatment of Moka deserves way more than just that!"

Ranma sweatdropped. "It does? Why?" All he ever did to the vampiress was a few verbal jabs, and he didn't even put much effort into them; really, considering how harmless and good-natured Moka was, what was the point?

"Such angelic perfection as Moka is blighted by the presence of a clueless brute like you!" Yukari declared, planting her free hand on her hip. "Listen here, Saotome! From now on, and until you leave Moka be for good, you are my enemy! Do you understand?"

"What, now you're going to try and kill me for real?" Ranma asked, looking even more annoyed. Just his luck he'd make an enemy out of someone he couldn't hit for fear of massive guilt.

Yukari blanched, her eyes going wide as she reconsidered her words. "Well, uh, I d-didn't mean it quite like THAT," she admitted nervously. After a moment she regained her nerve and shook her head. "Don't worry! I'll make sure you live to regret your actions!" She declared, pointing at the pigtailed boy menacingly before turning on her heel and dashing out of the cafeteria.

Ranma scoffed at the young witch's back before taking a long look at his clothes, still smeared with food. Then he made a disgusted face and left for the exit himself, doubtless to go wash and change.

Tsukune's cheek twitched as he watched his roommate leave the room, the pigtailed boy having apparently failed to notice his friends. "You're absolutely right," he said to Kurumu, "how HAS she survived this long?" Hanging off of Moka and irritating her friends incessantly was one thing, but picking a fight with Ranma was...

Well, it wasn't necessarily deadly, as Tsukune had faith that Ranma would only do something drastic to an enemy if they really deserved it, but deliberately targeting and then declaring open hostilities against someone like Ranma, who excelled at violence and never shrank from trouble, seemed like an extremely un-genius-like thing to do.

"Huh. I wonder what she has in mind," Kurumu mumbled, her thoughts mirroring Tsukune's. The difference was that she didn't have as much faith as he did that Ranma would stay lenient and forgiving forever. Very few monsters were. "I mean, I've always heard of witches doing very high-level stuff, turning people into little animals, causing their targets to age decades in a few days, things like that."

Tsukune tried to imagine a horrifying death curse coming from Yukari's bejeweled, heart-shaped scepter, and almost bit his tongue to keep from laughing. "I should talk to Moka and see if she can nip this in the bud. I'm pretty sure she doesn't want Yukari starting a blood feud in her name."

Kurumu snorted. "Yeah, good luck with that. Moka might as well be that brat's real mother for how she acts. If any of us so much as lift a finger against her, she goes ballistic, but the twerp has free reign against us."

"I'm sure if I talk to her, she'll come around," Tsukune said, sounding far more optimistic than he felt. "I'm sure the last thing she wants is Yukari and Ranma at each other's throats."

* * *

Mid-afternoon saw a distinctly annoyed and freshly bathed Ranma entering his government class several minutes early.

He rarely came early to his classes, as he actually had friends here at Youkai who he'd rather spend time with rather than catch up on sleep, but he didn't particularly feel like seeking out Tsukune at the moment. Tsukune was probably with Moka, or at least near enough to her that Yukari wouldn't be far behind. While he had little fear of Yukari's silly campaign against him, he didn't feel like seeing the irritating witch again so soon.

Most of his peers seemed to follow the same principle about punctuality, because the room was nearly empty as Ranma took his seat and fumed silently to himself.

'Yukari doesn't bother me nearly as much as Moka does,' he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest as he thought over the recent encounter. 'I can handle anything that brat throws at me. But having Miss Fangs shout me down like that is humiliating, and I don't want to get a reputation for picking on kids or anything. It's like P-chan all over again. Well, really, it's worse. I never had a problem with slugging Ryoga in the chops if he got annoying.'

It did occur to him that such a reputation didn't have the stigma attached to it among monsters that it did with humans, but that hardly made a difference. Ranma Saotome was a paragon of manhood, a martial artist of impeccable skills and morals, not some punk who beat up women and children for calling him names!

His concerns slipped away from him as he noticed someone familiar enter the room, and the pigtailed boy leaned back and grinned as Kana approached her desk. "Hey Kana! Thanks again for helping me out yesterday. I think the training went great."

Kana immediately ducked her head, intensely aware of the other people in the room. "I'm still not... sure about that. I never really... see cats around here," she whispered, taking her seat behind the pigtailed boy and leaning close to him.

Ranma shrugged. "Well, there must be **some** of the dirty things hanging around campus. Or else where did all that training bait come from?"

Across the room, a gloomy-looking girl sighed as she rested her head on the table. "It's been more than twenty-four hours! I just know that something's happened to Mikael, I can feel it!"

"Well, being that he's your familiar, yeah, you should be able to feel it if he's hurt or something," another girl replied. "But you can just summon him back to life, right? No matter what happened to him?"

"Yeah, but it's such a pain," the first girl mumbled, "and I never get the ritual absolutely **perfect**, so Mikael always whines that his fur is the wrong color, or that he's nearsighted, or something dumb like that. Frankly, it serves the pipsqueak right if he wanders off into somewhere dangerous."

"Animals are like that sometimes," said a rather burly boy sitting behind the girls. "Heck, I don't have lunch today because it got out of my dorm window and wandered off sometime last night. Little furballs can be pretty damn clever when they wanna be."

"You bring a live lunch?" the gloomy girl asked, looking disgusted.

"What can I say? I like my meat rare."

Kana shrugged, admitting to herself that she had no idea where the cats had come from if they weren't strays.

"By the way, I forgot to ask," Ranma said suddenly, switching topics, "but which club did you end up joining? I got into the fight club, while Tsukune and the girls ended up in some treasure hunting group headed by Jadeite," he explained.

"Ah..." the siren cringed considerably, making Ranma wonder if the matter was a sore point, for some reason. "I got into... uh... the music club," she admitted.

"Oh! Well, sure, that'd make sense, right?" Ranma said, grinning. "You've got a great voice, so of course you'd make a perfect singer!"

Kana winced, which was not lost of the pigtailed boy. "I... uh... I work the... stage lighting..."

Ranma was silent for several seconds. "...... Huh?"

"I... have wings," Kana explained timidly, "and I'm light... so I can get into... the scaffolding easily. It's not very sturdy... and most of the other club members... are pretty heavy, so..."

"But you're a **siren**! Why wouldn't they have you sing?" Ranma protested.

Kana glanced around at the other students in the room meaningfully, looking miserable.

"OH. Right. Your voice seizes up. Yeah. That could do it," Ranma mumbled lamely as he scratched the back of his head. If he'd thought about it, the problem was quite obvious; even if Kana got used to the people in the club to the point that she could speak and sing normally, performing in front of an audience, which the music club did regularly, would have been an exercise in failure and humiliation.

"Well... uh... maybe you could... er... learn to play an instrument! Yeah!" Ranma said, trying to cheer the girl up.

"Hmph. I could... just voice the sound of most... guitar notes perfectly... if I could speak normally," she groused. It was true, too. Kana's rendition of "Stairway to Heaven," one of her favorite songs to sing in the shower, was so faithful and complete that her neighbor had been completely perplexed when Kana insisted that she had no stereo for her to borrow.

Really, the conversation made Ranma wonder why the siren had chosen a club in which she had an interest but could only manage half-hearted participation, but Kana obviously felt bad enough about the state of affairs without him sticking his foot in his mouth.

Thus, he was more relieved than annoyed when the Dark Liege suddenly stormed in the room clutching a piece of paper in one hand and looking like she had murder on her mind.

"Mister Saotome!" the buxom demoness barked, crossing her arms under her breasts as soon as she reached the desk at the head of the room. "Get up here!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow at the command, to say nothing of the Dark Liege's unusual tone. Still, he couldn't find a reason not to obey, so he got up from his desk and strolled up to the front of the classroom, looking as unconcerned as possible. 'Better to get whatever she wants done with now, before class starts. Less people to get caught up in it.'

"Do you know what this is?" the Dark Liege asked, holding up the scrap of paper as her two normal eyes narrowed and the third one in her forehead... squinted or something. It was hard to tell, really.

Ranma glanced at the folded piece of paper. "I'd say it's a good start to a paper airplane. What's this about?"

"Ha ha," the demoness laughed with a notable lack of humor. "Allow me to read you this **fascinating** article: 'Dear Liege, I have in my possession five lovely jewels that I understand are very valuable to you. One might even say you'd sell your soul for them'," at this point the third eye in the woman's forehead glowed furiously, forcing Ranma and everybody else in the classroom to avert their gaze briefly. "'I would be happy to exchange these very important jewels in exchange for certain favors only a woman of your calibre could provide. Simply meet me alone behind the main dorms after class today. I'm sure we can work out a hot bargain. Sincerely, Saotome Ranma'."

The classroom was absolutely silent as the Dark Liege negligently flipped the note onto the surface of the desk, staring down at the pigtailed boy in front of her. Ranma was frozen in place, his body and expression absolutely still, as if he was hoping that the demoness would overlook him if he did his best impression of a mannequin.

"Tell me, Saotome," the Dark Liege drawled, leaning closer to the paralyzed teenager, "who did you piss off that actually had the gall to steal my soul shards?"

Ranma promptly snapped out of his stunned state as his condition improved one step to merely being confused out of his mind. "Huh?"

"You didn't write this letter, did you?" the Dark Liege asked, picking up the note and holding it up.

"Nope," Ranma said immediately and honestly. For one thing, he hadn't known how important the jewels were before just now. For another, he didn't have any reason to blackmail the Dark Liege. He had only taken the gems because he'd assumed that he'd eventually end up having to save some helpless girl from the woman's clutches and fight a titanic battle in some doomed castle on some rotten island or something. He just thought it'd be nice to actually plan ahead and have a few trump cards handy for once.

The Dark Liege snorted. "Of course. I could tell immediately that it was a forgery when I realized that the text was actually halfway legible," she explained, frowning at the piece of paper. "As I've seen your handwriting before, the writer would have had to go much further in trying to copy you. Breaking all of his or her fingers first might have at least made it **plausible**."

Ranma might have protested the unnecessarily harsh criticism of his handwriting, but was too busy watching the tail end of his life flashing before his eyes. He was right at the part where he fought Saffron, and it was way too cool to pay much attention to the insanely powerful woman in front of him.

"Furthermore, the innuendo is just NOT you," the Dark Liege said condescendingly as she sat sideways on her desk, showing off an amazing amount of leg and causing a few of the male students that were now filing into the room to stagger and then fall over like a row of dominoes. "Frankly, with all the reaction I get from you, I doubt you'd know what to do with me if you had me."

Ranma's mind snapped back to attention as his annoyance at the situation overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation. "I know exactly what I'd do. It involves your mouth..."

The Dark Liege raised an eyebrow.

"... and a strip of duct tape," Ranma finished.

The Dark Liege's eyebrow dropped. "I don't know what's worse: your handwriting or your taste in women," she sighed, crumpling up the paper and tossing it into the trash bin.

"Yeah, it's weird. I just have this thing for girls who don't have huge, creepy eyes lodged in their foreheads," Ranma deadpanned. "Really. Drives me NUTS."

"Noted. Thank you Mister Saotome, now go away," the Dark Liege groused, waving the insolent teenager back to his seat. She had thought the boy might at least have some lead as to who had stolen the all-important jewels that, with great irony, held her soul for safe-keeping, but Ranma obviously didn't have a clue what all this was about. After all, if someone had framed him for such a crime and he knew who it was, he would have obviously leapt at the chance to redirect her anger at its rightful target.

Ranma, who was himself mentally stunned by how smoothly he had just gotten away with potential murder, bowed to the teacher in the most sarcastic manner he could manage. "As you wish, your Dark Highness." Without another word, and ignoring the heated glare on his back that felt like it actually WAS slowly burning holes in him, he walked back to his seat.

"Well, that went pretty well, actually," he mumbled to himself as he sat down.

Naturally, he could only think of one person at Youkai Academy who would both want to cause him harm and had the brains to do so in a manner more subtle than a rampaging boar. He had no proof that Yukari was the culprit, of course, but frankly he wouldn't have bothered naming her if he did. Besides the fact that turning the Dark Liege on her would have been, in a twisted sort of way, pinning his crime on the young witch, Ranma was curious and a bit concerned as to whether Yukari actually knew he had the soul shards, was making a guess, or had just heard about the theft and decided to take a blind swing at him.

His contemplation was interrupted as he felt something tap his shoulder, and he turned around to see Kana staring at him with a decidedly intense expression, her face flushed.

"Uh... j-just curious, but..." the siren's choked whisper trailed off for a moment. "What do you think... of girls with wings?" the pigtailed boy's apparent dislike of extra eyes had gotten her wondering what other body parts he might have found unpleasant. It was rare, but on occasion monsters DID take interest in the appearance of their partner's actual body, rather than their arbitrary human form.

"Wings are cool," Ranma said without hesitation, giving absolutely no thought to any possible meaning behind her question. "I like wings." Really, who wouldn't like wings? Besides the obvious advantage of being able to finally ditch the tiresome and inefficient traditional method of travel - hopping across other people's roofs - for full flight, the very thought of what he could do with that sort of mid-air force control made his head spin.

Kana beamed beatifically at the comment, not caring that the pigtailed boy had drifted off into oblivious thought as class finally began.

* * *

"Gah! Ranma! They're back!"

Ranma twitched slightly as he laid in bed, still wrapped snugly underneath his blanket. "Wa's back, 'kune?" he mumbled, not willing to crack his eyes open just yet.

Tsukune, who was wearing only his pants and a few splatters of toothpaste foam around his mouth, came rushing out of the bathroom in a panic. "The spiders! There's a huge tarantula behind the toilet!"

Ranma was silent for several seconds before he rolled over lazily. "Oh. Him. Yeah, don' worry. He's jus' there ta kill roaches. Harmless." While Ranma's original aim was to eliminate and/or scare off every feline and feline-like creature within one hundred kilometers to keep the wretched things away from him, it soon became obvious that the spiders couldn't sustain themselves on cats alone. Also, there **were** other pests around that needed to be removed. Other than the spiders themselves, that is.

Besides, some of the bugs that got in the dorms were only a few evolutionary degrees from felines anyway. Put a tail and some cat ears on one of the larger roaches, and Ranma would've been sent screaming.

Tsukune looked fearfully into the bathroom. "Its fangs are like thumbtacks!" he protested.

Ranma groaned as he pushed himself up off his pillow. "All right, all right, I'm up." Really, it was about time for him to get up anyway, but he'd found it harder and harder to rouse himself without anyone to either splash him with cold water, throw him out the window, or scream death threats at the top of their lungs. "Here Guile. C'mere, boy!"

Ranma snapped his fingers a few times, and Tsukune scrambled backward as the teapot-sized arachnid scurried out of the bathroom and started crawling up onto Ranma's bed.

"You've... trained them?" the younger boy asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it was actually pretty easy," Ranma mumbled before he yawned, idly petting the tarantula as it crawled over his bedsheets.

Tsukune was more than a little creeped out by the prospect, but after a few seconds his rationalization engine - which had been upgraded considerably since attending a school for monsters and befriending a vampire - put his fears to rest. After all, even in the human world, people kept large spiders as pets; why not here? "Oh. Well... okay, then. So all of the ones inside won't attack people?"

"Most of them," Ranma replied as he started to get dressed. "But hey, don't worry about it. They're SPIDERS. They're more afraid of you than you are of them!"

Tsukune looked at the tarantula squatting on Ranma's pillow. "Really?"

"Well... no. Not you, personally You're about as scary as a butterfly," Ranma admitted as he buttoned his shirt. "But you are much bigger than them, and that counts for a lot."

"Okay, fine. Are there any more spiders in the bathroom?" Tsukune asked, sighing. As important as it was to learn about the new, highly poisonous pets that were now infesting his dorm room, he really just wanted to finish washing up.

Ranma stretched his arms out for a moment as he yawned again, and then snapped his fingers once more. "Chun-li! Vega! Come!" The medicine cabinet in the bathroom rattled for a moment before it cracked open, and numerous long, hairy legs spilled out before a pair of huge black arachnids scurried out into the dorm proper.

It was a testament to Tsukune's willpower and trust in his friend that he was actually willing to enter the bathroom. Either that, or he simply wanted to put a locked door between himself and the trio of fanged horrors scuttling around the bedroom.

Ranma was sleepily making a breakfast of toast and tea when there was a knock on the door, and he frowned as he reluctantly moved away from his food to answer it.

He was expecting it to be Moka or Kurumu at the door, probably to escort Tsukune to class, but was surprised to see some fellow he had never seen before standing outside his door and looking extremely cross. He was wearing a uniform, but it was completely different from Youkai's school uniform, resembling a well-pressed black military officer's jacket with a cloth band on his left arm. Other than that the fellow was fairly unremarkable, being slightly shorter than Ranma, having slicked-back black hair, and emanating an almost delusional air of authority about him.

"Hello?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you Ranma Saotome?" the stranger asked, frowning derisively. From what he had heard, Saotome was supposed to be some kind of monstrous super-warrior that could crush trolls like insects without dropping his human form. The boy before him seemed athletic but sluggish, and lacked the fierce, piercing eyes of a true warrior.

The boy before him also had an alarmingly large spider resting on his shoulder, but that hardly counted for much.

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, that's me. What's up?"

The stranger straightened. "My name is Haruo Keisu, of the Youkai Academy Protection Committee, also known as the Enforcers. I expect you've heard of me."

Ranma shook his head. "Nope. Doesn't ring a bell."

Haruo's eyes narrowed. "The Protection Committee is the source of order in the midst of the chaos of Youkai Academy, Saotome. You may think of us as Youkai Academy's standing army, and the peaceful life of the students here is thanks to our efforts alone."

The pigtailed boy blinked. So far Youkai seemed to him to be about as peaceful and orderly as a soccer riot. "So, wait, you guys are like police officers?"

Haruo raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I suppose you could say-"

"Perfect! This is great!" Ranma said, suddenly looking quite pleased. "I had no idea we had anything like that! Listen, I need to talk to you about a few of my teachers. Especially my physical science teacher, Richard, he keeps killing-"

The Enforcer promptly cut him off. "I'm not interested in hearing any of your baseless accusations against our teaching staff, or looking at any so-called 'proof'. I'm here about a much more important matter: you destroyed my window last night!"

Ranma's pleasant surprise rapidly drained away. "What." he said flatly.

Haruo took a note out of his pocket and brandished it before the pigtailed boy. "This morning, I found my window shattered and your note, which apologized for the incident and gave me a way to find you."

Ranma snatched the note out of the Enforcer's hands and quickly confirmed it as the same vaguely-readable scrawl that had served as an imitation of his handwriting to the Dark Liege. "This wasn't me," he said irritably.

Haruo snorted. "Yes, I'm sure you regret leaving your information now that you know who you're dealing with, but it's far too late to hide, now." His eyes narrowed into a glare. "At the very least, you've tried to be straightforward in redeeming this heinous act of vandalism, but-"

"Can I borrow a pen, please?" Ranma said suddenly, holding out his hand.

Haruo promptly took a writing implement from his breast pocket and handed it to the martial artist. "As I was saying, honesty can only redeem so much. You will replace what you have damaged, and then you will be punished for your carelessness to the full extent of the-"

"Thanks," Ranma said suddenly as he handed the pen back, along with the note.

Haruo took both items, and then noticed that something new was written on the note in katakana big enough that it managed to be easily readable despite the crude and clumsy handwriting. "What's this? 'Meow'?"

In an instant, the spider on Ranma's shoulder tensed up and then leapt straight onto Haruo's face, wrapping its legs tightly around the Enforcer's head as it ruthlessly attacked its prey.

"AAAAAAAUGH!! WAAAAH!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!! GYAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Ranma watched impassively as the other student dashed through the halls, flailing his arms wildly as he screamed in terror.

After a few seconds, however, he heard the teapot whistling, so he went back into the dorm room and shut the door behind him.

* * *

"So how many of those spiders have you trained?" Tsukune asked as he and Ranma walked to class together.

"I got to ten before I ran out of Street Fighter names. I only played the second one," Ranma admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe I could try using King of Fighters characters, but I never actually beat any of those games."

Tsukune cringed. "You mean there are ten of those things crawling around our room?"

"Naw, most of 'em stay outside," Ranma assured the younger boy. "I know they bother you, so I only let the really obedient ones stay in the room. There are only four in there."

"Oh..." Tsukune felt extremely relieved, as much by Ranma's thinking of his feelings as by the relatively small number of arachnids. "Wait, I only saw three, though. Where was the other one?"

Ranma frowned as he thought over that question. "Did you feel anything funny in your shoes when you put them on this morning?"

"No," Tsukune responded, trying to suppress a growing sense of alarm.

"Then don't worry about it," Ranma insisted, "although I would definitely shake out all your clothes before you put 'em on from here on out."

Tsukune's face darkened as they approached homeroom, but he perked up once he saw Moka coming from down the hall. "Ranma, I'll see in you in class later, all right? I need to have a talk with Moka about Yukari."

Ranma raised an eyebrow as the younger boy took off, wondering what Tsukune had to talk about that involved the irritating witch. Maybe he was just annoyed with all the constant name-calling?

It didn't occur to Ranma at all that Tsukune might try to intervene for his sake. People never stuck their neck out for him, at least not without ulterior motives, and frankly the pigtailed boy would have been struck dumb if he'd known that Tsukune would risk upsetting Moka to try and protect him from her irritating and vindictive tag-along.

Shrugging, the pigtailed boy continued on to the classroom, feeling more and more nervous as the prospect of spending another class with Miss Nekonome loomed closer. 'Man, I wish I could bring one of my spiders with me.'

"Moka! Wait up!" Tsukune was quite gratified to see that Yukari was nowhere in sight at the moment, and quickly rushed up to the vampiress to stand in her path.

"Tsukune! Good morning!" Moka said, smiling. She was quite happy to see Tsukune, as they'd hardly spent any time together yesterday after the fiasco between Yukari and Ranma. "How have you been?"

"Oh, not too bad, I guess," Tsukune said quickly, pushing the pleasantries aside for the moment. "Moka, listen, we need to talk about Yukari."

Moka's mood promptly dipped, and her shoulders slumped. Yukari was the LAST thing Moka wanted to discuss right now. For some reason the preteen witch had actually been giving her some personal space recently, and since Yukari didn't get along with her other friends, she had been looking forward to spending time with Tsukune without dwelling on the reason why spending time with Tsukune had become a rarity.

"Can't we talk about something else? Have you heard that there are cats disappearing all around campus?" Moka tried, turning her smile up a few notches to "encourage" the human boy to avoid uncomfortable topics.

Tsukune was quite determined, however. "No, we can't. We need to do something NOW, or someone's going to get hurt. Moka, did you know that Yukari declared some kind on feud with Ranma yesterday?"

Moka crossed her arms over her chest as her smile wilted. "If Ranma didn't antagonize her, then she wouldn't bother him."

"If Ranma didn't antagonize her, she'd probably start targeting ME or something," Tsukune said seriously. "Look, I'm not asking you to stop being friends with her or anything, but you're the ONLY one she cares about. If you just stand there smiling while she insults us or whacks Ranma with mops, you're telling her that sort of thing is okay!"

"I don't think there's anything wrong with a girl standing up for herself or her friends," Moka said firmly.

Tsukune fought down a surge of incredulous frustration. 'Okay, just stay calm. Try to look at this from her point of view: Ranma is a really aggressive person, and Yukari seems to be doing everything she's doing for Moka's benefit. I probably can't convince her that Yukari is the bad guy, here.'

"Moka, try to understand that it's not just Ranma I'm worried about," Tsukune said carefully. "He can take care of himself better than any of us. But I'm afraid Yukari is going to take this way too far. In the cafeteria she nearly got herself pummeled by a bunch of students after she used their food as projectiles. You see, this isn't just about her quarrel with Ranma; if she doesn't reign herself in, then she's going to get hurt. And what's worse, she might actually deserve it."

Moka took a step back, looking quite alarmed and upset. "What are you saying? She's just a child!"

"I'm saying that everyone could avoid a lot of trouble and potential injury if you at least made it clear you don't approve of attacks on your friends," Tsukune said with a bit more heat. "I mean, I don't like being called a loser, but I think everyone could live with it as long as wash tubs aren't falling from the sky. But as long as you keep quiet, she's going to take that as permission to do whatever she wants!"

"You're totally overreacting," Moka insisted hotly, stepping past Tsukune as she headed toward the classroom. "Yukari is just a little girl acting out. As long as Ranma doesn't lose his temper and do something he'll regret, she'll get bored and it will all work out."

Tsukune grit his teeth as the vampiress walked away from him, and reached out to grab her arm. "Moka, wait! I'm not-"

"HEY! SENDO! GET OUT HERE!"

Both Moka and Tsukune flinched at the sound of Ranma's shout, and they both adopted expressions of pure dread before they raced off toward the classroom.

* * *

Several minutes earlier...

Ranma's hand shot up over his head as he moved through the doorway, catching the dusty eraser that had been placed on the partially-open door.

Frowning at the eraser as he moved through the classroom, Ranma reached his seat, and then quietly picked up the thumbtack that had been placed, pointy-side up, on his chair.

He spared only a second to glance over the rest of his desk before he sat down, the other students watching him closely.

"Hey, uh, Saotome," mumbled the girl that sat behind him, leaning forward. "Just so you know, the traps were-"

"It's all right," Ranma mumbled back, rolling his eyes. "I know all about the traps. Don't worry about it."

The girl blinked, and then shrugged. "Oh, okay. I wouldn't open your desk if I were you, though."

Ranma frowned, and then rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered his peer's warning.

And then, of course, he opened up his desk.

_Fssssss!_ Immediately the fuse of a some kind of small prank bomb placed among his books lit aflame, rapidly burning down toward its calamitous conclusion.

Ranma calmly licked his thumb and forefinger and then squeezed the end of the fuse, putting it out with a sizzling hiss.

Taking out the small bomb, he then put it on top of his desk, arranging it next to the eraser and the thumbtack.

Then he stood up and took a deep breath.

"HEY! SENDO! GET OUT HERE!" the pigtailed boy roared, causing several other students to flinch back.

After a few seconds, a short and irritated figure dropped down from outside onto the window sill.

"Huh. So I see you've evaded my traps so far," Yukari sniffed disdainfully.

Ranma's stare was curiously devoid of any anger or even irritation as he turned to face the preteen witch. "Traps? You call these **traps**?" He asked, gesturing to the items on his desk.

Yukari blink-blinked.

"I've gotta admit, when you said earlier that you were gonna go all-out against me, I was actually a little bit worried," Ranma continued. "I've had real bad experiences with curses and magic, so I figured an actual witch could do a lot of damage if she had the chance."

Then he gestured to the articles on his desk. "But this? This is **insulting**. This is something I'd expect from a brat half your age. Or maybe someone twenty times your age. The point is, this is pathetic, and I'm not gonna stand for it anymore."

Yukari was caught between utter confusion and indignation. "Wh-What? What do you mean? Don't think that this is all I'm capable of!"

"Oh, it better not be," Ranma shot back, "because now it's ON. I'll teach you a thing or two!"

Much of Yukari's indignation had by now melted fully into confusion. "Wait, what?"

"I'll show you what a REAL prankster can do," Ranma declared, his mouth twisting into a vicious grin. "Then maybe you'll realize exactly who you're dealing with, here."

"...... Huh?" Yukari asked dumbly. She hadn't considered this at all. She knew what to do if Ranma had gotten angry, if he had ignored her, or if, hopefully, he had decided that never coming within twenty meters of Moka ever again was an exciting new lifestyle choice. But this sort of retaliation...

Quite honestly, she didn't know what to make of it. Why would an idiot fist fighter like Ranma sink to her level, and engage in a sort of conflict where she, a genius, had an enormous advantage?

'Well, he IS an idiot. That counts for a lot, I guess.' Yukari shook her head. "Whatever. I have better things to do than argue with an ape like you."

Without another word, the young witch turned and leapt out the window, leaving Ranma to snort in annoyance and sit back down.

* * *

Moka promptly backed away from the doorway where she and Tsukune had been watching the confrontation, and then pulled Tsukune to face her. "Tsukune, you have to stop him!"

Tsukune's expression promptly went from exasperated to icy. "Excuse me?"

Moka looked frantic as she took the boy by the shoulders. "You heard him! He's going to... going to... DO something to her!"

"He said he was going to prank her," Tsukune deadpanned, "and while I admit that Ranma seems intent on making this mess ten times worse, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing to start panicking about."

"What? What if he hurts her?" Moka insisted.

It must be said, in the interest of fairness, that Tsukune made a herculean effort to care about the well-being of the little magical girl that seemed hell-bent on terrorizing his best friend for no reason. As a good citizen and a gentleman, he was strongly opposed to violence or ill-treatment of women, and he gathered up every scrap of those sentiments before he dared to make his delicately composed reply.

"Hurts her how much?" he asked in all seriousness. It was not his finest moment.

"Tsukune!" Moka shouted, scandalized.

"Wait, let me take that back," the human mumbled as he scratched the back of his head. "Okay, look: Ranma isn't the type that would really hurt a little girl even if..." he trailed off just before he added the words 'they deserved it'. "Even if... they treated him really, really badly. Yukari might get humiliated, but Ranma won't hurt her."

Moka shook her head. "I'm not sure I trust him that far."

"Well, why the heck NOT?" Tsukune snapped, causing the vampiress to start in surprise at the tone. "Moka, I'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for Ranma! He's put himself in harm's way for both of us, and never asked for anything in return! Don't you think HE deserves a little consideration too?"

"I'm not sure he does," the vampiress snapped back, her own tone heating up to match Tsukune's. "Ranma loves to fight! What makes you think he was doing any of that for our sakes? And what makes you think he'll never raise a hand against Yukari?"

Tsukune grit his teeth as his frustration started to boil over. "Maybe if Yukari didn't work so hard to EARN a beating, then that wouldn't be a prob-"

"Good morning!" Shizuka Nekonome said suddenly, smiling as she rounded the corner and saw two of her students talking outside the classroom.

The homeroom teacher was slightly worried when neither of the teenagers greeted her back, but instead stood silently in front of the door, glaring at each other furiously. "Is... something the matter?"

"It's not a big deal," Tsukune said, his tone carrying enough acid to melt steel, "I'll be going to my seat now."

Moka watched the human boy stalk back into the classroom, and then turned to give her homeroom teacher a rather pathetic, withered smile. "We're fine, Miss Nekonome. Don't mind us," she insisted.

Shizuka couldn't help but notice that the young woman seemed to have a white-knuckled death grip on her book bag, to say nothing of the vein throbbing on the side of her head. "Ah... okay. Are you... going to go inside?"

"No, not yet," Moka said pleasantly, the vein still pulsing, "if I go in now, I may end up throwing my desk at someone. Please, go ahead."

* * *

'He's going to teach **me** a thing or two? Him? That pigtailed, overmuscled baboon? Ha!' Yukari thought to herself as she strode toward her Dealing With Demon Hunters classroom, her wand in her hand. Not that she had the class today, but there were materials in her desk she needed.

'Well, I don't know what freak explosion of brain cells prompted that moronic challenge, but it couldn't be better for me!'

Naturally Yukari's primary concern when targeting Ranma Saotome for her campaign of misery was that the big lug would get mad, track her down, and then break her like a toothpick. This was why she had so far mainly relied on misleading other people, or setting traps she could watch from a safe distance or not at all. In a pinch she could rely on Moka to protect her from harm, but Yukari didn't want to trouble her beloved by putting the vampiress in Ranma's warpath.

Of course, if Ranma really was intent on fighting this battle on her level, for whatever stupid reason, then victory was already hers; she would unleash Hell upon the pigtailed boy, and not only would she grind away his will, but she would humiliate him at the same time by thwarting his own stupid tricks!

'I wonder what he can actually do, anyway,' the young witch mused as she entered the empty classroom, idly noting the words "Class canceled," scrawled messily across the chalkboard. 'He might not be as smart as I am, but I still haven't managed to pin down his species... that's the one area in which he has an advantage and can surprise me.'

Nodding to herself thoughtfully, Yukari opened her desk.

_PWOOF!_ The young witch gasped as she was instantly consumed in a cloud of white powder, and she windmilled her arms in a panic as her vision was completely obscured. "Gah!" _Clunk!_ Striking her foot on her chair, Yukari promptly tripped and fell to the ground, coughing violently.

"Wh-What is this?" the witch demanded as she waved her hand about to dispel the obscuring cloud. The white powder had a dull, grainy smell that was somehow familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it...

"Kuonji-style okinomiyaki flour bomb," came a familiar voice from the classroom entrance. "Let that be a lesson to you: if you're gonna rig a bomb to someone's desk, make sure it goes off right after they open it."

Yukari blinked, and then rubbed at her eyes until they were relatively clear.

Once she confirmed that, yes, it WAS Ranma Saotome leaning against the doorway and looking quite smug, the young witch calmly pushed herself to her feet and patted down her uniform.

After that, she took off her hat and beat it against the adjacent chair to get the loose flour off, and then took off her cape and shook it out to clean it.

Ranma watched with undisguised interest as the preteen dusted herself off, his hands in his pockets.

Once she was clean enough that she looked like she had merely baked a cake rather than looking like she'd been used as an ingredient, Yukari gathered her dignity and walked straight up to the pigtailed boy at the entrance, her head held high (quite high, actually, given that she had to crane her neck to make eye contact).

"Of course, you realize," the young witch said calmly, "this means war."

"Your move, pipsqueak," Ranma said, turning around and heading down the hall.

"My move... yes... you won't beat me, Saotome..." Yukari mumbled to herself as possibilities raced through her mind. "Heh heh heh... Ha ha ha! MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!!"

* * *

"Ranma! There you are!" Kurumu said happily as she peeked into the classroom, spotting the pigtailed boy in the middle of some sort of martial arts routine.

Classes were over for the day, so all the classrooms had either been left empty or were being used for club activities. As both Ranma and Kurumu's club meetings had been canceled due to various injuries, that left them with spare time and empty space.

Ranma had moved the desks and chairs into a ring, and had been doing a kata that emphasized speed combined with more powerful, less precise blows. "Hi Kurumu. What's up?" he asked without turning toward the succubus and continuing in his movements.

"I wanted to ask you if you knew what was going on with Tsukune and Moka recently," the bluette asked eagerly. "Did something happen? The atmosphere between those two could almost give someone frostbite!"

Ranma frowned as he launched a powerful open-palm strike, causing the air to snap audibly and some of the furniture in front of him to tremble from the shock wave. "Did something happen? Well, I know that they had some kind of 'talk' before homeroom today. From what I can tell it didn't go very well, because they started shouting at each other right before Miss Nekonome showed up." The pigtailed boy allowed a brief shudder at the memory of his adorably feline homeroom teacher. "I don't know any of the details, but I think they were talking about Yukari."

Kurumu beamed. "I knew it! Tsukune told me that nothing was wrong, but he's finally starting to see the light! How can you love someone who'll treat a brat like that better than her boyfriend? This is great!"

"Is it?" Ranma asked doubtfully as he swung his leg up, launching a trio of kicks that could have ultimately knocked down a telephone pole. Had a skilled martial artist been watching, though, they would have noted that the kicks seemed aimed at points that were far too high to be effective against someone of normal height.

"I mean, Moka's not perfect, but I can kinda see where she's coming from with this," the pigtailed boy admitted, "if there was some lonely little girl who declared ME some kind of God made flesh and I was her only friend in the world, I might act the same way."

"You're far too understanding," the succubus said as she wagged her finger. "But this isn't really about Moka and Yukari; this is about Moka and Tsukune. If Moka's let the runt come between them, then it won't be long before Tsukune washes his hands of the bloodsucker completely."

Ranma sighed and finally dropped his exercises. "Yeah, well, I don't think that's a good thing. They were really close before, and it's really a shame if they let Yukari pry them apart so easily." Walking over to Kurumu, he dropped into the chair next to her, his hands on his knees.

Kurumu snorted. "It just goes to show that she's not good enough for Tsukune. **I** would never let my friends treat him that way."

The pigtailed boy rolled his eyes. "Well, sure, you can say that much, but part of what he likes about Moka is that gentle, motherly attitude, you know?" Ranma pointed out as he reached out with his hand and grabbed Kurumu's right breast.

Kurumu opened her mouth to reply... and then closed her mouth wordlessly before her gaze dropped to her chest where she was being fondled.

Ranma, for his part, blinked in surprise, and then started bigsweating. "Uh... that's... erm... huh..." he gulped as the succubus made eye contact again, her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Would you believe that I have NO idea how that got there?"

Kurumu took a deep breath, which Ranma couldn't help but notice caused her breast to swell pleasantly within his hand. "In retrospect, probably," she admitted. "But for now..." her nails started lengthening as she held up her hands, her eyes glowing slightly in anger.

Ranma tried to flee, or at least remove his hand from the girl's chest, but found his arms and legs unresponsive, like a puppet being controlled by invisible strings. "Hey! Wait! I'm sorry! Stop! GWAH!"

Hiding outside under the windowsill enjoying the noise of the scuffle, Yukari chuckled darkly as she held the tiny straw voodoo doll embellished with a black pigtail, making sure its limbs were pinched between her fingers.

"Ow! Ow! I swear, it's not me! Augh! Not the face!" Ranma cried.

"Don't worry about it! A little more and I'll forgive you completely!" Kurumu growled.

Yukari waited about ten more seconds for the beating to subside, and then giggled when she heard the sound of Ranma hit the floor with a groan.

She promptly popped up before the window, a victorious grin stretched across her face. "Ha! You wanted to see something special, did you Ranma?"

Kurumu blanched as she saw the witch appear outside the window, and she clenched her teeth once she saw the doll the preteen was holding. "Hey! That was you!"

Ranma coughed from where he laid on the floor in a slowly expanding puddle of blood, his clothes shredded and deep gashes decorating his upper body. "I told you..."

The young witch ignored the succubus, casually tossing the voodoo doll atop the injured martial artist. "Underestimate me at your own peril, cretin! There's plenty more where that came from!" she declared as she turned and raced away.

"That little brat!" Kurumu shouted, her hand gripped into a fist. "How dare she violate me like that! She won't..."

The succubus trailed off as Ranma lurched to his feet, the voodoo doll held tightly in his hand and blood dripping from the slashes over his face, arms, and chest.

"Oh! Ranma, I'm so sorry! I didn't-"

"Don't worry about it," Ranma said, cutting her off as he staggered out the door. "Gotta go. It's my move now."

Kurumu blinked, surprised and confused. "Your move? What?"

* * *

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Moka asked as Yukari snuggled her arm tightly. "Just so you know, if Ranma does ANYTHING to you, you can tell me, okay? I'll set him straight, even if Tsukune won't."

Yukari glanced up at the vampiress's disapproving frown, and her current state of glee bumped up further into near-euphoria. Not only had she taken Ranma down a peg, but apparently her conflict had unexpectedly driven a wedge between the object of her affections and that object's underwhelming tag-along. With the only serious competitor for Moka's time out of the way, life was grand!

"Don't concern yourself with that hubristic primate," Yukari said as she slipped into genius-speak. "The whole point of my campaign is to keep his stupidity from bothering you, after all!"

"Oh. Well... it's certainly worked," Moka admitted. Not that she really had a problem with Ranma "bothering" her, but it had now been more than a day since they'd even spoken to each other. "I'm still worried that you might provoke him, though."

"And as I said: don't worry! I can handle that senseless brute with ease!" the young witch insisted, giving Moka a tight squeeze as they approached her room. "Nonetheless, thank you for escorting me! Have an exquisite evening!"

Hopping away from the vampiress, Yukari cheerfully swung open the door to her dorm room, and was somewhat surprised to find that the light was on inside.

The rest of her surprise was thoroughly booked by the sight of dozens of glossy black eyes staring at her quietly, unperturbed by her entrance.

Yukari's cheer drained from her expression at a rate comparable to the blood draining from her face as she looked over the many large, hairy, big, befanged, huge spiders that seemed to have taken up residence in her room, many of which were quite massive.

Oh, sure, none of them held a candle to the spider monster that the exploration club had run into on their first trip, but as arachnids went she was fairly certain some of the ones present could have subdued and eaten her without the assistance of lethal venoms. Which she was sure they had anyway, given her initial survey of the land around the dorms and the wildlife that was usually found there.

Without speaking a word, Yukari stiffly stepped backward into the hallway and then gently closed the door behind her.

"Moka?"

The vampiress, who had almost turned the corner at the end of the hall, stopped in her tracks and turned around. "Yes? What is it?"

"C-Circumstances have arisen that m-make my room unsuitable for h-habitation. C-Can I sleep with you?"

Had the request been made normally, Moka would have definitely drawn the line there and then. As tolerant as she was of Yukari's clinginess and her habit of groping Moka's breasts whenever it pleased her, she was well aware of the witch's ultimate intentions toward her and wasn't quite ready to make that concession for the sake of their burgeoning friendship.

One glance at the glassy-eyed and trembling Yukari, however, and her resistance shattered like glass. "Of course you can sleep with me! Is something wrong with your room?"

"J-Just a minor s-s-setback," Yukari stuttered, her eye starting to twitch as she latched back onto Moka. "One that can be r-rectified with a broom and some Raid. A lot of Raid. Maybe with a fire hose..."

* * *

"All right, I'll see you in class!" Tsukune called behind him as he stepped through the doorway into the dorm hall, ready to start a brand new day of monstrous education.

His rather pleasant attitude was necessarily tempered when he realized that Moka was standing outside in the middle of the hall, her arms crossed over her chest. "Oh. Moka. Hi," he said somewhat frostily, guessing that the vampiress wasn't here to make up with him.

"Tsukune, this needs to stop," Moka said, launching straight to the heart of the matter. "If we don't end this fight between Ranma and Yukari, someone's going to get hurt."

"Wow, deja'vu," Tsukune mumbled, rubbing his head as if perplexed. "Didn't we have this EXACT conversation before? Only it was ME who said we should do something about it?"

Moka groaned slightly at the reminder. "Well, if that's how you feel, then let's stop them! You can do it, right? Ranma will listen to you!"

Tsukune rubbed his chin for a few seconds. "Nah."

Then the human turned and headed down the hall, whistling merrily to himself.

Moka spent a few moments stunned, but soon recovered and raced after him. "Wait! What are you talking about? Why not?"

Tsukune shrugged, not turning toward the vampiress. "I was worried about Ranma at first, but he doesn't seem too bothered by the whole thing," he admitted. "Well... there's also the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the spiders nesting in your room are spending the night someplace else, but that's incidental."

Moka looked quite upset at this, so Tsukune added, "Of course, you could always just ask Yukari to stop. I'm sure Ranma wouldn't antagonize someone who wasn't bothering him."

Moka scowled. "It's not that easy, you know. Yukari doesn't want to stop."

Tsukune halted. "What?"

"I told her that all this trouble really wasn't worth it, and that Ranma might do something really dangerous if they kept fighting. She wasn't convinced," Moka said pensively. "I think she's treating this like some sort of game."

Tsukune frowned at that, but eventually shrugged once more. "Well, if you can't reign in Yukari, I don't know how you expect me to stop Ranma. Besides, maybe we're worrying too much about this."

"What do you mean?" Moka asked as she moved to walk alongside the human boy.

"I mean that they... I don't know... seem really into this spat, somehow," Tsukune mumbled. "I think they're less worried about spiting each other rather than outdoing each other."

Moka looked unconvinced. "That doesn't exactly make me feel better..."

Surely the pair would have continued their discussion, but Tsukune suddenly veered out of the way as he saw several rather angry-looking people in strange black uniforms march up the stairs, looking as if they would happily trample anything that got in their way.

Moka followed suit, and the vampiress stared in confusion as the group stomped by. "Were those students?" she asked nervously. They looked too young to be staff or faculty, but they weren't wearing the normal uniforms.

Tsukune scratched his head. "Those bands on their arms said 'Protection Committee'."

"There's a Protection Committee? What do they do?" Moka asked skeptically.

"Not much, as far as I can tell," Tsukune said, turning back around. "C'mon, let's go to class. It doesn't have anything to do with us."

"All right."

* * *

Ranma hummed pleasantly to himself as he scrubbed himself clean in the shower, calculating his next move in his head.

'If I can get the spiders out of Yukari's room before homeroom is over, then I can still arrive soon enough that I won't get marked completely absent.' Not that he would have spent any time in the presence of his terrifyingly feline homeroom instructor at all if he could help it, but he did have a minimum attendance to keep up.

'What should I do next? Maybe I could replace her wand with a prop? Maybe even something that lights up and makes noise, so she thinks there's something wrong with it.'

Had any of his instructors, save Richard, been privy to his thoughts, each one of them would have commented that if Ranma put half the planning and effort he had put into this prank war into his studies, then his grades wouldn't be a problem.

Professor Richard, on the other hand, would have simply recommended fire.

'Wonder what she's gonna come at me with. After the spider thing it'll probably be an attack on the dorms, in some way. I hope it doesn't affect Tsukune too. No way he deserves-'

It was about at this point that the water temperature spontaneously dropped about ninety degrees in the space of a second, causing Ranma's eyes to bug out from the combination of flesh-piercing cold and the unexpected shift in gender. "GAAAH!!"

* * *

Yukari cackled to herself as she finished activating the cold charm that had been fixed to the hot water pipe leading up to the floor of the dorms that Ranma and Tsukune inhabited. A moment later a loud shout came from the expected room, causing another round of chortling.

"My point once again," Yukari crowed as she crept stealthily out of the utility closet. "Your move, Saotome!"

He may have surprised her with his resourcefulness so far, but it was only a matter of time until he ran out of ideas. When pitted against the numerous possibilities offered by magic, combined with her own superb intellect, the poor sap stood no chance.

'It was kind of weird, though,' the young witch thought as she headed toward the stairs, 'that almost sounded like a girl's scream.'

* * *

"Ok-k-kay. N-Not a b-b-bad move," Ranma mumbled to herself as she shivered badly, reaching for her towel.

Looking back at the tub, the shower head now sported a long, thick icicle that hung down almost to the floor of the tub, slowly dripping icy water into the drain.

"Maybe I could get a wand replica that gives little electric shocks. Or shoots out confetti when she tries to use it. I'll have to ask around," the pigtailed girl mused as she dried herself off rapidly, warming enough to stop shaking.

Once Ranma got out of the bathroom she started getting dressed, but had only put on her boxers and undershirt before she heard someone banging on the door with their fist.

"Just a minute!" Ranma said as she slipped on her pants.

_WHAM!_ The door suddenly collapsed as whoever was outside kicked it in, and Ranma blinked as several people stormed into the room angrily.

There were three boys and one girl, all wearing the same black uniform that vaguely reminded Ranma of military uniforms and armbands that identified them as members of the Protection Committee.

'Protection Committee? Oh! That's right!' Once she recalled yesterday's encounter she promptly recognized one of the boys as Haruo, the one who had been misguided by Yukari. It wasn't easy to tell, what with the bandages around much of his face and the considerable swelling, but it was definitely him. 'Huh. Is this about yesterday, or is the runt trying a double-whammy?'

Haruo scowled as he looked around the dorm room, largely ignoring the redhead until he was fairly certain there was no one else around. "You!" he demanded. "Where's Ranma Saotome?"

Ranma blinked, and then cocked her head to one side as she started her airhead routine. "Ranma... Ranma... you know... I'm not sure I know who that is!"

The girl crossed her arms over her chest, looking impatient. "Haruo, do you have the wrong room?"

"N-No! He was here, I know it!" Haruo insisted.

"Just because he was here doesn't mean this is his room," one of the other boys noted, the both of them openly admiring Ranma's cleavage.

"Whatever!" Haruo growled, taking out a piece of paper and holding it up in front of Ranma. "You see this? This is an order officiating the removal of all spiders from the premises! Those pets of Saotome's are a threat to the health and well-being of the students, as evidenced when one of them attacked me! They are all to be removed at once!"

"That's **removed**, not harmed," said the girl, who Ranma noted had slight bags under her eyes and long, silky black hair. "Right, Haruo?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say Keito," the male Enforcer mumbled, clearly annoyed by the mandate. "So where are they?"

"Ah!"

Keito and Haruo, who hadn't been paying particular attention to the pigtailed girl in the middle of the room, turned to see that the redhead was now shaking, her eyes wide with terror.

"You... You mean... there are SPIDERS in here?" Ranma squeaked, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes as she bunched up her hands under her chin.

Very slowly, Keito and the two unnamed Enforcers turned toward Haruo, who blanched. "W-Wait! You mean you didn't see them? That's impossible! Those things were huge! Bigger than a man's head!"

"Oh!" Ranma promptly collapsed backward in her best impression of a faint, and conveniently landed on her bed.

"I... I mean... just because she didn't see..." Haruo stumbled over his words as Keito glanced around, her expression tightening. "They were here! I swear it!"

"Well, they're not here now," Keito snapped. "I would be able to sense them if they were."

"What? But Keito-"

_Shwip!_ With a flick of her fingers, Haruo's mouth was suddenly covered with a patch of sticky threads, and Keito snorted as she walked out of the room.

"Really Haruo, if you're going to waste our time like this, you can work out your stupid grudges by yourself. Don't drag us into it." The raven-haired woman shoved him out of the way, quickly followed by the two nameless grunts as she exited the room. "Now come along! We have REAL work to do!"

"Mmphragmm!"

"Don't you dare talk back to me!"

Ranma waited until the sounds of bickering faded into the distance, and then cracked one eye open.

"Man, if THOSE morons are the ones in charge of law and order around here, it's no wonder the place has gone to hell in a handbasket."

In addition to being petty, it now seemed apparent that they were also incompetent; a cursory inspection of the room or an understanding of the dorm housing plan would have revealed that it was obviously boys that lived there, which would make one wonder what a random girl was doing in the room. A little more searching would have located Ranma's clothes, and a lot of searching would have revealed the webbing of the numerous spiders that were conveniently absent during the intrusion.

"Well, I'm pretty sure Yukari had nothing to do with that; not nearly clever enough," Ranma decided as she picked up the door and wedged it back into place. Then she plugged in the portable stove that she used to heat water.

"Hmmm... I wonder if I could get instant Jusenkyou water packets sent here?" Ranma wondered aloud, smiling wickedly. "After all, Ranma Saotome **doesn't lose**!"

* * *

Note: Haruo Keisu is a character of my own creation, to supplement the painfully short supply of actual Enforcers that are characterized in the manga. Keito is from canon.

End Chapter 4

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"Dear Kamiya. I haven't been at Youkai Academy for long, but I've already run into many of the difficulties that you mentioned when you originally opposed my attending this school."

Kana spoke aloud as she wrote, her script flowing as elegantly and smoothly as her voice as she composed a letter next to her bed.

"As you had imagined, my... problems with my voice have made school difficult. I'm unable to participate in class properly, tend to be ignored by most, and there are some who I've heard mock my speech. I joined a club I have a great deal of interest in, but as I haven't gotten used to the other members yet, I can barely communicate with them, and they seem to find me more of an annoyance than a help."

She sighed wistfully as she re-read the last sentence.

"It hasn't been too hard, however. I haven't been subjected to bullying and the instructors here seem understanding of my weakness... or perhaps they simply don't care how well I learn their lessons. Either way, the path ahead is not impossible, and I intend to continue trying my best at this school."

A small smile alighted on her face as she started the next paragraph.

"One matter in which my speech hasn't crippled me overmuch is in making friends. I can't claim to have many, but there's one..." the siren halted at this, wondering how much she should reveal about the only real friend she'd made since her enrollment. "One **individual** who has gone through a great deal of trouble to help me, and we've become rather close. I am not popular, but even this slightly lonely life, I believe, is better than the isolation that I left."

Kana's expression grew more determined as she wrapped up her missive.

"Despite my difficulties, I want to stay here and learn what they have to teach. You say that humans and monsters cannot peacefully coexist, and that may be true; even here, learning to act like humans and live peacefully among them, I see a great deal of hatred for them. Monsters are taught to obey their lessons out of fear for the humans in the outside world, and many of them resent it. But it seems to me that cooperation among us monsters toward overthrowing humans is even more far-fetched; human inferiority is the only matter upon which monsters can agree, and in all other things we find ourselves consumed with more personal hatreds. It is this and much more that I've come to witness while at Youkai Academy, and I wish to continue experiencing what this place has to offer."

Nodding sharply, the siren decided on her final lines.

"My dearest brother, someday I will return to you, I promise. Love, your dearest sister, Kana."

Smiling softly, Kana read over her message before turning toward the window to gaze outside at the gloomy cloud cover that was always present around Youkai. Except that she couldn't, because an enormous spider with a mottled gray carapace was clinging to the wall around her window, completely obscuring her room's view with the chitinous underside of its massive thorax.

Kana frowned in the direction of the beast, and then sucked in a deep breath.

"Sssssweeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" The high-vibration whistle shook her dorm's window as it reverberated through the walls, and the huge spider monster bristled before it suddenly scrambled away up the building, its senses severely agitated by the noise.

After taking a moment to appreciate the frankly unpleasant view from outside her window, Kana turned back toward her letter.

"P.S. There's a rather severe spider infestation here at Youkai. It doesn't bother my friend, but frankly I think it's getting a bit out of hand. I'm definitely going to invest in some bug spray."

Her letter complete, the siren took it up and folded it before placing it in a colored envelope, ready for delivery. 


	6. How Much Curse is Too Much?

"Hi everyone! It's time to guess Ranma Saotome's true species!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly, curling up her fists like a cat as she winked and turned about.

"Today we have yet another of Ranma's teachers here to give his special insight as to Ranma's behavior and offer more clues! May I present Professor Jadeite!"

The dark general was seated off to the side sipping some tea, and he nodded curtly as Shizuka gestured to him.

"Thank you, Miss Nekonome. Indeed, I've been observing Saotome for some time in my class, and I believe that my long experience in dealing with supernaturals, as well as my superior tactical acumen and intellect, have given me all the information I need to reveal Saotome's true form."

"Ooh! Sounds like you're pretty confident!" the nekomata purred, her tail perking up.

Jadeite nodded again. "Indeed. For you see... Saotome is... a youma."

Shizuka's tail immediately drooped. "A youma? Based on what?"

"Well... based on... Saotome's resilience and his... abilities..." Jadeite hedged, stopping to take a sip of tea. "Also, I sensed his... uh... is 'aura' the term that the kids are using today? Yes, let's go with that. So he's definitely a youma, which as you know, is actually a wide sub-class of youkai native to-"

"Youma are the only monsters you know of, aren't they?" Shizuka deadpanned.

"You are correct," Jadeite said shamelessly. "Well, them and witches. You don't think he's a witch, do you?"

Shizuka sighed and turned around, ignoring the dark general's new musings. "That's all we have for now! See you next time!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: You know those crazy dances that they hold at night at anime conventions? The ones that combine the headbanging debauchery of raves with cosplaying and J-pop? Who the hell goes to those? What kind of nerds go to a convention about games and cartoons to DANCE?

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 5  
How Much Curse is Too Much?

* * *

"All right lowly students, pay attention," snapped Jadeite harshly as he started scrawling on the blackboard. "Ensure that your notes are complete and precise. I am still recovering from the... accident the other day, and even minute amounts of stress - like, say, the effort required to implode your chest cavity for example - could cause a considerable increase in blood pressure."

The class mumbled half-hearted affirmations at the reminder that they were, as always, stepping a fine line between safety and annihilation now that their professor was in good enough shape to host his class.

"Remember now that the typical devil hunter is a teenage girl suffering through puberty and a long string of pointless personal melodrama. To that end, you'll usually find them most active not in the nesting places of proper monsters, but rather at high schools, malls, fast food restaurants, arcades..."

Amongst the rows of students taking careful notes to avoid any excuse for torso implosion, Ranma frowned at his mostly empty notebook - it wasn't completely blank, as he had used it to doodle pictures of his new pet spiders and list more prospective names - as his pen scratched uselessly at the surface of the paper, leaving not a mark.

Closing the notebook and standing up from his desk, he calmly walked up toward the front row of the classroom, ignoring the curious and startled gazes of his classmates.

Yukari, who was taking notes just as studiously as the rest of the class, if more calmly, let out a surprised squeak as she felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and her entire body tensed up once she turned and realized that Ranma was standing right behind her.

"What do you want?" the young witch hissed, well aware that she was within melee range, seated, and surrounded by unsympathetic peers.

In response, Ranma held out his pen in front of her. "My pen won't work. Can I borrow yours?"

Yukari gave him a look that asked, quite clearly despite the lack of speech, if he was an idiot. "No! Why would you even ask me?"

"Well, it's not like I know anyone else in this class," the pigtailed boy reasoned, still holding his pen out.

"Ahem!" Jadeite cleared his throat loudly as he glowered at Ranma, his chalk held still against the board. "Mister Saotome, you're interrupting my lecture."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Ranma murmured without a drop of sincerity, still looking down at Yukari. "Come on, I know you have a spare; I don't have anything else to write with."

"Not my problem!" Yukari said defensively, clutching her own pen tightly. "Go ask someone else!"

Ranma rolled his eyes and turned around to head back to his seat, and Yukari let out a relieved sigh once he finally sat back down.

"All right, then," Jadeite mumbled, his eyebrow twitching. "It's important to note that devil hunters often enjoy a social network of other humans that they use for information gathering. The most common - and insidious - method of doing so is to befriend one human that inexplicably and constantly ends up being kidnapped, attacked, or otherwise victimized and then track her to the offender..."

Yukari grit her teeth in annoyance as her pen scratched the surface of her notebook uselessly. 'What's wrong with this thing? It was working fine a moment ago!'

Making sure to keep careful note of what Jadeite was saying, Yukari tried furiously clicking the button at the end in vain hope that it would restore the implement's ink.

It wasn't until the button popped off and a jet of ink blasted in her face that she recalled that her pen had no switch on the end. _Splurch!_

Ranma smirked as Jadeite halted in mid-sentence at the noise, his hand inadvertently drawing a wide slash across the chalkboard. All around the classroom there was stifled giggling, the other students trying to hold back for fear of angering their teacher.

"Thanks Yukari! This one works much better!" the pigtailed boy said happily as he waggled Yukari's pen about in the air. Then he re-opened his notebook to the appropriate page, figuring that he should make at least SOME attempt to take notes on whatever Jadeite was going on about.

"Eh?" he mumbled to himself as he stared at some unfamiliar writing amongst his clumsy paragraphs and crude doodles. "I don't remember this. Did the teach ever say anything about 'explosive runes'?"

_BOOM!_ The more magically-inclined students winced and covered their heads as they recognized the activation trigger to a magic trap, and there was even more giggling as Ranma coughed up a cloud of smoke, he face charred.

"Sendo. Saotome," Jadeite snapped, causing the two black-faced students to break off their mutual glare and face their instructor, "if you're QUITE done interrupting my class-"

"I doubt it," Ranma said suddenly, causing Jadeite to twitch as his irritation swelled, "I've still got at least one trick I could pull off before class ends."

Yukari held her silence as a crackling black aura appeared around their instructor, and she winced as she felt some of her magical energy and even a trickle of her life force seep into the man.

"Get. Out. Of my. Classroom," Jadeite growled, his eye twitching.

Ranma sighed, but did as he was told, picking up his things and strolling out the door calmly even as Yukari scurried by him trying to remain unnoticed.

* * *

"You'd better hope that this isn't recorded as an absence from class, for your sake," Yukari threatened as she and Ranma walked down the hall away from Jadeite's class. "I have a status to maintain as this institution's top-ranked student, you know!"

"Yeah, that must be real tough in a place like this," Ranma mumbled, glancing over at a large student who was lying unconscious in the hallway with writing all over his face. "Half the students are drooling idiots, most of the rest are psychos."

"Some of them are both," Yukari said snidely, giving the pigtailed boy a rather pointed stare as she finally wiped the last of the ink from her face. "Anyway, don't think you have the edge just because you've lasted longer than I thought you would! You'll never be able to compare to a genius like me!"

Ranma snorted, leaning against the wall as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, yeah, keep talking big. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you when you exhaust yourself and give up."

Yukari grit her teeth. "Just you wait, Saotome! You haven't even seen a fraction of the witch's true power!"

"I hope not," Ranma agreed, "if this was really all you were capable of, I don't think I'd be able to live with the guilt of actually taking you slightly seriously."

Yukari fumed angrily. "All right, fool! But I'll remember those words when you're on your knees, begging for mercy!"

"The day I beg on my knees is the day Moka turns vegetarian," Ranma countered, sticking out his tongue.

_Shwoooh!_ Ranma and Yukari ducked as a crackling black orb of destruction sailed over their heads, detonating a few moments later with a fearsome roar.

"Be QUIET and leave!" Jadeite snarled, smoke wafting from his hand as he turned around and re-entered his classroom.

The pair waited for a few seconds, and then Yukari cleared her throat.

"You'll soon feel the full measure of my brilliance, Saotome," she said calmly, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Yeah, and then I'll top it, same as everything else so far," Ranma whispered back, his hand cupping his mouth.

Their final taunts exchanged, the two quickly veered off in different directions.

It wasn't long before Yukari heard a cry of surprise and relief, and a confusing moment later she was enveloped in a hug as Moka plucked her off the floor and mashed the witch's face into her cleavage.

"Oh, Yukari! Thank goodness you're all right! I came as soon as I heard!"

Yukari blinked. "Eh? Heard what?" As happy as she was to be getting face time with Moka's breasts, she was fairly certain that the vampiress had class, and she wasn't in any sort of situation that her beloved should be shirking her studies for Yukari's benefit.

"The explosion!" Moka said, holding Yukari at arm's length. "The entire building shook! What did Ranma do this time? Did he actually use an explosive trap? I've heard about humans that do that!"

Yukari shook her head. "No, no... the explosion was... not entirely unrelated to my altercation with Saotome, but he was not responsible." Then she snorted. "That aside, please don't indulge that cretin's delusions of humanity. The way he touts his disguise is something to be abhorred, not admired," the witch insisted, her face serious. "Though I have to give him credit for being by and large the only student to actually abide by that rule..."

Moka sighed as much of her tension left her. "Well, as long as you're all right. I hope you two don't take this silly game too far."

"As I said to Saotome once already, this is no game; this is war," Yukari said firmly. "... Albeit, a war outside the bounds of ordinary martial conflict. Anyway, my point is, it would be a mistake to take this conflict so lightly. Even so, you needn't worry about me."

"Well, as long as you're careful," the vampiress mumbled reluctantly, patting Yukari's hat down over her head.

_Crack!_

Moka blinked as she heard a soft cracking noise, and Yukari's eyes widened as she felt something thick and wet dribble down her hair. "Gah! What in the hells?"

Snatching off her hat, Moka was surprised and dismayed to see the squashed remains of a single egg sitting on Yukari's head as its internal liquids spilled over the witch's head.

"How? When did he..." Yukari growled, wiping some yolk away as it threatened to run down into her eyes. "GAH! He'll pay for this humiliation! No more Miss Nice Witch! I'm going to the library!"

Moka stared at the shorter girl in concern as she stalked off, and then stared at her longer in confusion as Yukari returned, stalking in the opposite direction.

"That is, I'm going to the showers, and THEN the library," Yukari murmured, idly wiping some egg white off of her nose.

* * *

Tsukune swallowed nervously as he followed Ranma through the barren yard behind their dorms, his eyes flitting back in forth as he took in the numerous expanses of spider webs.

"You're sure this is safe, right? These spiders are trained?" the younger human asked, a shudder crawling down his spine at each sighting of glistening black eyes.

"Not all of 'em are trained, but it should be safe," Ranma explained as he strolled heedlessly deeper into the dead forest that surrounded Youkai Academy. "If you don't give 'em a reason to bite you, spiders won't mess with humans. Would YOU wanna attack an elephant just because you saw it walking around?"

Tsukune thought about the analogy for a few seconds, and then shook his head reluctantly as he straightened a bit. "You have a point... but still... how dangerous are those things?"

"You can't show fear to animals," Ranma said seriously, walking up to a small tree and idly smacking it with a backhanded strike.

_Plop!_ A tarantula about the size of Tsukune's hand landed square on Ranma's head, and the martial artist simply continued onward like nothing was wrong.

"Animals can sense tension in people, and it gets 'em all excited," Ranma continued explaining, ignoring the slight tickling sensation within his hair as the spider tried to steady itself. "If you're calm, they'll stay calm too. If you're scared, then they'll get scared, and a lot of animals tend to fight when they freak out."

"Okay... fair enough..." Tsukune murmured, trying to focus on the spider on top of Ranma to avoid looking around. 'It's not THAT big... I've seen bigger in pet shops. And it's not attacking Ranma at all, so how bad could it be?'

"That kinda empathy is what I like about animals, really," Ranma went on to explain as he picked his way through some patches of bone-dry, leafless bushes. "It'd be nice if people were that easy to deal with. Or monsters, for that matter."

"Ah. Point." Tsukune thought back to the times in which he had approached his classmates amiably and had been rewarded with violence. "So... what was it, exactly, that you were looking for out here?"

"Well, you know how I'm training all these spiders to keep away all the cats?" Ranma asked as he hopped up onto a branch about eight feet over his head and then looked around.

"No, I didn't know that. You never told me that. Why would you do that?" Tsukune deadpanned.

"Not important. Anyway, they do the job as far as normal cats go, but what about cat monsters? What if someone like Miss Nekonome comes after me?" Ranma hopped down from the dead tree, the spider upon his head clinging tightly to keep from flying off.

Tsukune was silent for several seconds. "I have no idea. What WOULD happen if Miss Nekonome comes after you?"

Ranma shuddered, and the spider atop his head hissed at the sudden agitation. "Never mind that. The important thing is that it never happens."

"Okay, fine. I don't know what's so scary about Miss Nekonome, but you seem to know what you're doing," Tsukune admitted. "But that still doesn't explain what we're doing out here, exactly."

"Right, right," Ranma mumbled, turning around toward the younger human. "Have you heard the rumors across school?"

"Which ones?" Tsukune asked. "The ones about all of class 2-C being held hostage in Professor Richard's 'Orphan Club'? Or the ones about Professor Jadeite putting together a field trip to Juuban with all of the most violent monsters from the different classes? And then there are the ones about a transfer student-"

"No, no. Stop," Ranma said suddenly. "And remind me later to take care of that thing with Richard. But no, I was talking about the ones about the tremendous spider that's been crawling around the dorms."

Tsukune stopped dead in his tracks. "Uh... HOW tremendous, exactly?"

"Hard to tell with rumors," Ranma admitted, "but I have it pinned down to somewhere between car-sized and small house."

"And... you want to do WHAT with this thing?" Tsukune asked, droplets of sweat crawling down his forehead.

"The same thing I do with the little ones," Ranma said simply as he considered the question. "Well, that's the plan, anyway. Really though, I'll probably have to kick some sense into the damn thing before it'll listen to me. That seems to be the way the bigger freaks work."

"Ah. I see," Tsukune mumbled, looking very nonplussed. "Why the enormous spider? Isn't there any other way to deal with... well... big cats?" Really, the entire situation seemed ridiculous to Tsukune. As it was, he was only able to take Ranma's concerns seriously because the older boy was so much more experienced with fighting and dealing with the supernatural.

"Uh huh, right," Ranma said sarcastically as he turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. "And what else around here can I possibly use to get rid of giant cats?"

"WOOF! WOOF!"

Tsukune nearly jumped in surprise and Ranma casually glanced backward over his shoulder at the sound of a roaring bark. Stepping through some dead bushes some distance away, the dry branches burning down to cinders in seconds, was a giant wolf nearly eight feet in length and almost a match for Tsukune in height. Its fur was an ashen black at the roots, but turned red and then fiery orange as it reached the tips, and a constant cloud of embers and hissing smoke whirled about the creature.

Ranma and Tsukune stared as the burning canine sniffed about in the distance, only visible to them through the dim light and thick (if not lush) foliage thanks to its size and the considerable amount of light it was generating.

"So... can I go back to our room now?" Tsukune asked, feeling his earlier nervousness return.

"Don't wait up for me," Ranma answered, carefully picking the tarantula off of his head and putting it aside before creeping forward through the dead forest.

* * *

Kouma the hellhound growled fiercely as he sniffed the ground uselessly, unable to pick up the scent he was following. Releasing a snort that scorched the ground with a small burst of flames, he picked his head up to once again scan the treetops for his quarry.

"Filthy fox! When I get a hold of you, not even the Enforcers will stop me from rending you apart!" the hound roared, glancing back and forth as a small firestorm began whirling around it.

"Eh? It can talk?"

Kouma started in surprise, and then whirled around, his breath hot in preparation to attack.

It relented instantly upon seeing a stranger in human form, however.

"Grrrr... don't sneak up on me, idiot!" The hellhound sniffed the air for a moment, his eyes narrowing. "You're definitely not her. Have you seen the kitsune around here?"

"Nope. Never seen any kitsune monsters before," Ranma said, rubbing his chin as he approached the hellhound, looking him over critically.

"I figured as much. Then hurry up and get lost. I'm... uh... what are you doing?" the massive dog asked as the pigtailed boy dropped into a crouch right in front of him, staring closely at his mouth.

"Yeah, you'll do just fine," Ranma said to himself before getting to his feet again and then patting the hellhound on the head. "Hey boy! You have an owner yet?"

A vein popped up on Kouma's head. "My name is Gamaroshi Kouma, not 'boy'."

"Oh. So does that mean you do have an owner? I don't see a collar..." Ranma asked, looking disappointed.

Two more veins popped up, and Kouma's lips rose to better show his teeth. "I'm one of your classmates, dumbass."

Ranma stared for several moments. "... So?"

_Fwoom!_ The martial artist yelped as a wave of hot ash seemed to burst forth from Kouma's body, forcing him to hop away as a fiery aura built around the angry hellhound.

"Don't screw with me! You wanna die, Saotome?" Kouma snarled.

Ranma blew on his hand briefly, and then shifted into a fighting stance. "Hey. You're in the fight club, aren't you?"

Kouma winced, and his ears went flat against his head. "Yeah, I am. Though thanks to you, I had to take two days off while they put my leg back together."

"Yeah, sorry about that," the pigtailed boy mumbled unconvincingly as he started shifting around the blazing canine. "Just thought I'd recognized that power before. But still, you know you can't really beat me, don't you?"

"If I let a little thing like that stop me, I'll be a small fry forever, won't I?" Kouma said, embers leaking from his mouth as he started circling Ranma in turn.

"Ha! Nice one!" Ranma cheered, breaking into a smile. "You're all right! After I beat you, you have to be my dog, okay?"

Another burst of flame signaled Kouma's annoyance. "Like hell I will! Burn, moron!" he roared, releasing a fireball from his mouth.

* * *

"Hi everyone!" cheered Shizuka Nekonome, her smile looking as cheerful as ever. "Today I'm here to tell you all about hellhounds!"

She tapped a pointer against the chalkboard, which showed several outlines of different breeds of dogs.

"Hellhounds are a species of demonic canines that are said to serve as guards in the netherworld! Although rather uncommon, hellhounds come in a variety of breeds, just like normal dogs! From imp terriers to Devil Bernards, to the famous Malbolgean shepherd, hellhounds range in size from as small as a melon to as large as an SUV, and there are even short-haired types for those with allergy concerns!"

Then the youkai teacher frowned. "Not that hellhounds make good pets, though. Although they take to their jobs with gusto, these monsters are usually very proud and short-tempered. Getting them to accept a master is hard, and even then the beasts' tempers tend to get the better of them."

Shizuka then pointed to several diagrams of dogs blowing out gouts of flame next to several thermometers scrawled in chalk. "Combat-wise, hellhounds naturally have a strong fire affinity. All but immune to extreme heat themselves, they spit fireballs at distant enemies, breath streams of flame at short range, and can raise the surrounding temperature significantly by releasing ash from their coats. Their mundane strength varies depending on the size of the hound, but the larger ones have no problem tearing apart foes with their powerful jaws, and hellhound saliva is as hot as molten lead."

The nekomata coughed into her hand. "That said, aside from brutish strength and having a natural flamethrower, hellhounds can otherwise be pretty clumsy, and their short temper means that they tend to fall for clever monsters' tricks and traps. Even so, it's best not to deal with them unless one absolutely has to."

Shizuka smiled brightly as she waved. "That's all I have to say! See you next time!"

* * *

"Whoa! WHOA!" Ranma shouted, leaping out of the way and landing on a tree branch before the projectile burst violently on the ground, lighting a swath of trees on fire. "Hey! Trying to blast me is one thing, but you're gonna burn down the whole forest!"

"What do I care?" Kouma demanded, white-hot droplets of saliva dripping from his maw. "Creepy place isn't much to look at anyway. Might as well use it for a BARBEQUE!" he barked, spitting another fireball into the air.

Ranma leaned backward as the orb of writhing flame streaked past him, searing his ear slightly before it burst apart in the air in a harmless display of blossoming fire. "Yeesh. With aim that bad, I don't think I can even use you to get rid of cats."

"Wh-What did you say?" Kouma snarled, his fur standing on end as black smoke blasted from his nostrils.

"I said I've seen newborn KITTENS scarier than you!" Ranma taunted (honestly), sticking out his tongue as he hopped backward from tree to tree.

With a feral roar that caused the ground beneath him to buckle and crack beneath thin seams of magma seeping from his feet, the hellhound gave chase to its new target, its eyes glowing a furious orange.

* * *

That evening saw Yukari practically barricaded in a corner of the library, her chosen table piled high with books about curses, hexes, and various arcane lore. Most the rest of the library was dark and barren - partly because it was late at night, and partly because the students had as much penchant for actually studying as they did for vegetarianism - but those few individuals that happened to be in the room made sure to steer clear of the young freshman, well aware of the havoc that a witch could wreak with a target and a little magical study.

"Too tame..." Yukari mumbled as she flipped through one of the less advanced curse compendiums. "Too permanent... too weak... too much risk of backfire..."

With a contemptuous snort, she tossed the tome aside and then picked up the next one. "Let's see... hm? Polymorph... interesting... Jusenkyou, huh? But I'd have to go through mail order, and I don't want to wait... what else is there... tattoos that effect martial arts performance could work, but I'd have to spend a lot of time practicing my calligraphy for just a prank..."

Quickly skimming the rest of the book and finding that it mostly contained different forms of glorified love potions, Yukari chalked up R. Takahashi's book of Obnoxious Magical Plot Devices as a loss and put it aside.

"There's got to be a spell or curse here that's both affordable to perform and reasonable enough in scope that I won't kill anyone," the young witch mumbled to herself as she took up the next tome.

For all her anger and frustration toward Ranma, she had to admit that, for a monster, the pigtailed boy wasn't a bad person by any stretch. He was certainly violent, especially compared to Tsukune and Moka (who practically qualified for sainthood by monster standards) but he actively avoided harming weak people and tried not to cause trouble where it wasn't wanted. He was still a blight unto Moka's presence, a sin that Yukari could not forgive, but the young witch wasn't prepared to kill or cripple the martial artist for his insolence.

"Hmmm... this could work," she mumbled to herself as she looked over the ingredient list for a luck curse. "Bat wings... lizard's tongue... devil's spade?" She frowned at the last item as she read the description. "Huh. Well, the effects are about right... though I wonder why it's a conjuration spell."

She continued reading about the spells effects, and frowned as she turned the page and found only the name of the next curse in the book. "Huh. That's it? Well, I suppose it'll do. But where am I going to find a devil's spade?" Yukari wondered aloud, rubbing her chin. "I doubt it has to be from a real devil, but still, the monsters I know with that kind of tail are..."

Yukari's eyes narrowed.

* * *

_Knock! Knock! Knock!_

Yukari waited patiently in the main hallway as shuffling noises came from the other side of the dorm room door, and twenty seconds later, the door opened.

Kurumu, dressed in a sheer negligee, white panties, and nothing else, stared down at Yukari with a mix of confusion and disappointment evident in her features. "Eh? What do you want, Sendo?"

"I had a quick question about succubae, and you were the obvious person to ask," Yukari said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "So tell me: do succubae tails grow back if cut off?"

Kurumu was silent for many seconds before she nodded. "I... think so... why?"

"No reason," Yukari said quickly. "Hey, why is Tsukune climbing in through your window?"

"What? Really?" Kurumu squealed, whirling around as her tail popped out, lifting the hem of her sleepwear.

Yukari's eyes glinted dangerously as she slid a pair of pruning shears out from under her hat.

* * *

"!"

Ranma and Kouma both flinched as a feminine cry of pain split the air.

"The hell was that?" Kouma asked, his ears flattening down over his head.

"Dunno. Coulda been Tsukune, but it sounds like it's from farther away," Ranma said, hopping down from the tree he was in and staring off toward the dorms.

"Aono? That sounded like a girl's scream, though," Kouma countered.

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I know. Little guy really needs to toughen up a little."

The hellhound stared wordlessly at the pigtailed boy for several seconds.

And then, at some unspoken signal, they both recalled that they were supposed to be fighting.

_Fwoosh!_ A long tongue of flame threatened to engulf Ranma as he back flipped across the ground, eventually landing in a crouch and then launching himself backwards into the air.

"You're not getting away!" Kouma snarled, embers bursting from his maw with every gasping breath. "Nobody treats me like a pet and gets away with it!"

"First time for everything!" Ranma said cheerfully as he grabbed onto a branch and then vaulted away through the treetops, the hellhound in pursuit.

Within moments the dead forest began to thin out significantly, and Ranma smirked as he saw land give way to the ocean off in the distance.

'With lots of cover, and surrounded by dry, flammable wood, the mutt's actually kind of dangerous. Out in the open, though, this guy's no match for me!'

Rebounding off of a splintered tree trunk that exploded into a conflagration a second later, Ranma landed lightly just a few meters from the edge of a rocky cliff, spending a long, dramatic moment to stare out at the ocean.

On his left side, the cliff lowered itself down to form an ugly beach dominated by jagged rocks and multiple signs that warned against swimming, fishing, and walking around at night arm-in-arm with a lover to engage in premarital relations. On the right was a tall bluff that stuck out above the roiling sea, and Ranma idly noticed that there was someone sitting at the very top of it, staring out at the water. Not important.

"Well, well. Looks like the monkey ran out of trees to swing from," Kouma growled, stepping out of the dry bushes that burned to cinders around him. "Nowhere left to run, punk."

Startled out of its quiet contemplation, the figure on the bluff turned to observe the showdown occurring nearby.

"I guess it's about time I dealt with you seriously," Ranma mumbled, cracking his neck casually as he stared expressionlessly at the massive hellhound.

"Aw, shut up and burn!" Kouma snarled, taking a deep breath to spit another stream of fire.

_Thwack!_ Faster than the eye could see, Ranma crossed the distance to the hellhound and snapped a kick into the canine's exposed throat, causing a shower of embers to spray from between Kouma's teeth as he reflexively coughed in response.

"Gack! Kugh!" Black smoke poured from Kouma's mouth as he started hacking up ashes, and Ranma winced and stepped back as flecks of saliva landed on him, searing his skin and clothes.

A moment later the hellhound swiped at Ranma clumsily with his paw, and the martial artist leapt up and then flipped around in the air to land knee-first right between Kouma's shoulder blades.

"GRAAARGH!" the hellhound roared in fury as he pushed himself up on his hind legs, throwing the pigtailed boy off of him. "I'm gonna incinerate you, bastard!"

"Try it, mutt!" Ranma taunted, backing away as the ambient temperature around Kouma jumped several more degrees as the canine's fur stood on end and glowed brighter.

"RAAAAUGH!" with a furious snarl, Kouma spat out a burst of fireballs, the projectiles whirling about each other and then spreading out, blanketing the entire area with fiery explosions.

"Ha! Gotcha mad, did I?" Ranma taunted some more, dodging to the side as one of the scattered projectiles actually came close to hitting him. 'I can tell he's getting tired. Little bit more and he should... wait...'

With a thick belch of black smoke and glowing embers, Kouma sent a particularly large fireball sailing into the air, and Ranma took a split second to take note of its trajectory before deciding to dash under it and launch another assault against his foe.

Or at least, that was the plan until he heard a startled shriek from behind him. "YEEEEK! No!"

Ranma's heart seized up as he glanced behind him, and he cursed himself silently as he realized that the fight had apparently wandered in the general direction of the bluff he had noted earlier. The person who had been sitting there minding their own business apparently hadn't left at the first sign of widespread collateral damage, and even now had frozen in terror as hot, fiery death descended from the sky.

_KABOOOM!_

Kouma panted wearily as he watched his enemy vanish within a maelstrom of fire, and the hellhound cringed as a panicked scream was drowned out from the roar as the explosion swallowed the bluff.

'Aw, crap. I didn't mean to actually kill him, much less some random bystander,' he thought abashedly as he continued gasping for breath, his lungs burning (no pun intended). 'When fight club starts up again, I'm definitely gonna have to talk to Miss Wildman about controlling my energy levels.'

The flames began to die down, and Kouma trotted forward reluctantly into the pit of ashes that remained of the bluff, sniffing at the blackened ground.

'Huh. Odd. They're not here?' the hellhound wondered, glancing about at the scorched earth. 'No way... did I even incinerate their bones?'

Somehow, Kouma doubted it. Ranma Saotome was supposed to be the rising star of the freshman class, and had even recently caught the attention of the Enforcers and the monstrels. He was a mysterious wild card, a powerful fighter who had managed to keep his real identity a secret and fought at low power. Surely someone like that wouldn't be done in by a lucky fireball, would he?

"Up you go!" Kouma perked up as he heard Ranma's voice come from the edge of the bluff, and he blew out a dusty sigh of relief as the unnoticed student from before was pushed up onto firm, solid ground.

It was some girl he'd never seen before, boasting unkempt, shoulder-length purple hair and an outfit was pretty far from the standard uniform on campus. A long-sleeved blouse made up her top, while a short, dark skirt gave way to long, striped socks.

The girl seemed absolutely dumbfounded at the moment, though her eyes hardened slightly when she caught sight of the hellhound standing in the midst of the blast crater he had made. Curling her lip back, Kouma could see her teeth clenching around the stick of a lollipop that had remained securely in her mouth despite the screaming and manhandling she had just suffered through.

"Hmph. So you're alive," the hellhound muttered, trying to sound as indifferent as possible as he watched Ranma - who had obviously caught much more of the fireball than the girl and was badly scorched as a result - climb up onto the bluff himself. "Let that be a lesson to you: don't trifle wi-"

_Bwack!_ Kouma let out a pained whimper as Ranma once again crossed the distance between them seemingly in an instant, sending a haymaker straight into the hellhound's sensitive nose and causing him to recoil and lower his head.

"Bad dog," Ranma muttered humorlessly as he stepped forward and raised up his arm.

_Crack!_ Kouma's eyes bugged out as Ranma's elbow slammed straight down onto his head, and his vision began to swim as the pain amplified the sense of exhaustion he was suffering from.

"Now, HEEL!" Ranma snapped as he pulled back one of the canine's forelegs with one hand while shoving its head down with the other, slamming Kouma's snout into the ground with enough force to blow out a wave of hot ash over the edge of the bluff.

Ranma started dusting off his hands as Kouma lay twitching in the dirt, his flesh still stinging from the fireball. "Hey, are you all right?"

The girl from before blinked in surprise, realizing belatedly that he was talking to her. "Uh... y-yes. Thank you..."

"No need for thanks; I should have been more careful about leading his shots if there were innocent people around," he murmured regrettably. "Name's Saotome Ranma. You?"

"Sh-Shirayuki Mizore," the girl stuttered, staring up at him. 'He's Ranma Saotome? I heard about him from the school newspapers... but they never showed a picture... or explained how handsome he was.' A flush came over her cheeks as she continued staring.

Ranma waved briefly as he stepped away, grabbing onto Kouma's tail. "Well, guess I'll see ya around, Mizore. Again, sorry you almost got roasted." With that, the pigtailed boy started dragging the hellhound back toward the dorms, happily oblivious to the love struck gaze burning into his back.

* * *

The next morning proved to be quite difficult for many students of Youkai Academy, and not just those still trapped in the school basement waiting helplessly while Richard went out at night making them full-fledged members of his club.

Kurumu and Yukari both awoke with severe injuries; the former had already made plans to see nurse Madaraki to have her tail regenerated from the swollen stump that Yukari had reduced it to, while the latter had simply bandaged up the many (deserved) lacerations on her face and arms and stoically went about preparing for a magic ceremony.

Ranma had his own share of wounds to recover from, but was used to such things. A little extra rest would see the numerous first-degree burns reduced to a mere tan over his skin.

Tsukune, on the other hand, was unscathed, but had other concerns upon waking up.

"Um... not to be rude or anything," the timid human began, his grip tightening on his blanket as he sat up in bed, "but who are you, and why are you in my room?"

The individual in question also seemed to be having an unpleasant morning, on account of being covered in dirt and bruises. He was a boy about Ranma's size, with spiky black hair and bushy eyebrows that crested over harsh red eyes.

The stranger stared at Tsukune wordlessly, as if judging the boy. "I'm Gamaroshi Kouma. I'm in your room because your idiot roommate beat me unconscious and dragged me here last night."

"Ah. So... you would be that giant dog, then?" Tsukune asked cautiously, glancing about for anything fireproof that he could use as a shield if necessary.

"Yeah, that's me. Giant dog," Kouma growled.

"W-Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Aono Tsukune," Tsukune offered, trying to calm himself as he leaned out of bed and offered his hand.

Kouma made no move to take it.

"Uh... shake?" Tsukune asked half-jokingly.

The hapless human squeaked painfully as Kouma suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him by the front of his pajamas, hauling him up in the air.

"Don't treat me like an animal, scumbag!" the hellhound snarled, his eyes glowing. "I'm no one's pet!"

"Wait! I'm sorry! It's a gesture of respect and friendship, I swear!" Tsukune said desperately, waving his arms.

"And here's a gesture of displeasure and anger," Kouma said, rearing a fist back.

_Crack!_ Both Tsukune and Kouma fell as a foot suddenly came down hard onto Kouma's head, staggering him and causing him to let go of his helpless victim.

_"Yawn_... oi... this has to be some kind of record, saving you first thing in the morning," Ranma said sleepily as he picked up Kouma by the foot and then hoisted the hellhound into the air upside-down. "Oi, mutt, what's your problem?"

"My NAME is Kouma!" Kouma growled.

Ranma spent a few seconds in silence. "And that's your problem?"

"No!"

"Well, then we're not getting anywhere with this conversation, are we?" Ranma asked, dropping the hellhound painfully onto his head. "Tsukune, you all right?"

"I'm fine," the younger human mumbled while inspecting his stretched out pajama-top. "So why did you bring this person here?"

"He's my new guard dog!" Ranma said happily, planting his fists on his hips.

"I am NOT your dog!" Kouma snarled, scrambling to his feet.

Ranma looked confused. "But I beat you last night, fair and square! That was the deal!"

"What deal? I didn't agree to anything!" Kouma shouted at the pigtailed boy. "I fought you because you were pissing me off, that's all! And you made me lose track of that damn fox!"

Ranma scratched his head as he thought over last night's encounter. It was true that he had simply declared the terms of the battle himself and then jumped into the fight, but that was what people had always done to him, and yet he had always been expected to live up to his opponents' ridiculous demands.

'Man, I guess this is what I get for acting like those morons back home. Who knew that didn't work on other people?'

"Hey, Ranma? Uh... I'm gonna go wash up, if it's all right..." Tsukune said awkwardly, not wanting to leave this matter unresolved but also wanting to make it to class on time and adequately clean.

"Yeah, go ahead," Ranma mumbled as he rubbed his chin.

Finally, he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, if you won't be my guard dog, then what WILL you do? I mean, I gave up my whole search last night just to bring you here."

Kouma balled his hands into fists as his teeth clenched. "You jumped me in the forest and then beat me unconscious! And you want a reward for that?"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "What, is that strange? I thought monsters did that kind of stuff all the time."

"Hellhounds are different!" Kouma insisted, jabbing a thumb into his chest. "We're beings of order, not chaos! If you want me to acknowledge you, you're going to have prove your integrity and strength of spirit, not just your martial power!"

Ranma blinked. "How about saving that chick on the bluff when you almost blasted her last night?"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence after Ranma's question, broken only by the sound of the shower turning on in the bathroom.

"Well... uh... why do you want a guard, anyway?" Kouma mumbled, scratching the back of his head as he tried not to make eye contact with the other boy. "And why me? I'm sure there are plenty of other monsters that would be willing to be your lackey."

Ranma crossed his arms over his chest as he squatted on his bed, his expression deadly serious. "I need someone to get rid of cats."

"Cats?" Kouma echoed.

"Cats," Ranma confirmed.

"Why cats?"

Ranma took a deep breath to fortify his composure, preparing to delve deep into the topic of his most feared and hated enemy. "Cats are beings of pure evil made flesh. Sadistic, petty, self-centered, arrogant, hateful, cruel beasts who love nothing more than to see others suffer. And that's just the little ones. I've only met one kind of cat monster before - some kind of ghost cat thing - but that was plenty. I want someone to keep the blasted things away from me."

Kouma spent several long seconds digesting the tirade, and then his lips slowly grew into a smirk. "So... what you're saying is... you're afraid of cats."

Ranma twitched. "Wh-What? No! No, that's ridiculous! As if I could be afraid of something like that!" he said unconvincingly, his skin crawling.

"Yes. 'As if'." Kouma's smirk broke into an all-out grin. "Just imagine, Ranma Saotome, top brawler of the freshman class, scared of itty bitty kitty cats! Ha!"

"H-Hey! Watch it, jerk!" Ranma growled, his teeth clenching. "I sure as hell 'aint afraid of fire-breathing mutts, so shut up!"

The hellhound snorted. "Why should I take you seriously? Like I'm going to fear anyone who'd freak out at the sound of a kitten!"

Seeing the playful look on Kouma's face, Ranma paled slightly. "Whoa. Wait. I'm warning you, don't-"

"Mreow!" Kouma mewed mockingly, holding up his fists in imitation of a cat's pawing.

"Hssss!"

The hellhound was quite surprised as something rather large and hairy fell down on top of his head from the ceiling at the same time two more somethings grabbed onto each of his legs. This surprise gave way to panic as his body was punctured by three pairs of needle-like fangs.

"Gah! Aargh! Get 'em off me! Get 'em off!"

Ranma winced as Kouma ran around in circles in his bedroom, flailing helplessly as the giant spiders flooded his veins with poison. "Hey, I warned you..."

_Crash!_ The pigtailed boy cringed as Kouma jumped through the window while screaming, dislodging the spiders as he rolled along the ground and then scrambled away, still screaming.

Ranma sighed as he stared at the shattered glass, watching as the three arachnids that had attacked slowly crawled back into the room, their target having escaped. "Man... what a waste of an evening. And now there's gonna be a draft in here. Knew I shoulda stuck to spiders..."

* * *

_Knock! Knock! Knock!_ Moka retracted her hand after knocking on Yukari's door, fretting silently as she waited for the young witch to respond.

'She was really upset with Ranma when I saw her last night... I hope she's okay.'

"Moka? Is that you? You can come in," Yukari called from the other side of the door. "Forgive me, but the somatic requirements of this ritual require me to remain immobile for now."

Frowning slightly, Moka pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The interior of Yukari's room, which had been cleaned to impeccable standards as soon as the giant spiders had left, was now aglow with a myriad of colors all originating from a shimmering portal of ethereal light slowly rotating above Yukari's head.

"Uh... Yukari, what is-" Moka was about to ask what was going on, but the magical disturbance in the room was forgotten as soon as she noticed the bandages all over the young witch's face. "Yukari! What happened? Did Ranma do that to you?"

Yukari almost sighed at Moka's knee-jerk reaction. "Moka, Ranma is far from the only one who might seek to inflict harm upon me; there's no need to accuse him every time something goes awry." Then she cleared her throat as she continued grinding away at some mixture with a mortar and pestle. "As it so happens, these wounds were... well... I would call them a fair price to pay, honestly." As selfish and reckless as Yukari could be sometimes, even she didn't expect she could harvest body parts from living and unwilling donors without suffering retribution. Frankly, she was just glad she had escaped with all her extremities intact.

Moka sighed wearily. "I wish you wouldn't get into trouble like that, Yukari. What if something serious happened to you?"

"It's indeed unfortunate that things have escalated this far," Yukari began, though the smirk on her face indicated that she didn't find things all that unfortunate, "but at this point I have little choice but to go all-out if I'm to put Saotome in his place. And if I wasn't willing to risk a few scratches for the chance to fully humiliate him, what kind of witch would I be?"

Moka glanced doubtfully at the shimmering portal. "So... what is this, exactly?"

"A generic luck curse," Yukari said as she finished grinding the ingredients and poured the contents of a small crystal bottle into the mix. It promptly began to fizzle noisily. "A bit uncreative, I suppose, but its potency is guaranteed!"

Without further delay, Yukari tossed the mixture up into the dancing lights, and Moka flinched away as a ghastly howl filled the room as the light turned to ambient darkness, an insidious shadow that seemed to swallow the room despite the dim sunlight filtering in through the open windows.

Yukari cleared her throat as she removed a Polaroid picture of Ranma from within her cape and placed it down under the coruscating pitch. "Here is the target, here is the prey; to cast out and humble with little delay! Whether rain or wind, mud or rock, shave precious hours from his clock! Fire and salt, dust and ash, the curse is complete, now kick his ass!"

Moka sweatdropped heavily at the incantation, but couldn't deny its effectiveness as a tendril of shadow seeped from the darkness and reach down to touch the photograph, causing it to disintegrate instantly.

Within a few seconds, the construct of shadow had disintegrated, and the light levels returned to normal.

"Uh... so... shaving hours from his clock? What does that mean?" Moka asked, wanting to break the awkward silence as Yukari started gathering up the remnants of her ritual.

"Normally it's a metaphor for cutting a life short," Yukari explained as she took out a dustpan and her witch's wand, "but given the lesser severity of the curse, I assume it's to be taken literally, as in consuming hours of his time as he deals with the effects." With a snap of the wand, a broom in the corner floated over to the young witch and started sweeping the dust on the floor into the dustpan.

"Ah. I... see," the vampiress mumbled, unsure as to how she felt about this newest turn of events. The childish pranks that Yukari and Ranma had been throwing at each other were quite bad enough in her opinion, but actually cursing someone was...

Well, she had no idea how bad it was, really. She had never dealt with or seen curses herself until seeing Ranma change gender, but from that instance alone she got the distinct feeling that such powers shouldn't be cast about lightly.

With a flick of her wrist, Yukari floated the dustpan over to the trash and emptied it. "Now all that's left is to watch as Ranma's fate cuts him down to size!" the young witch said cheerfully, packing up the spell book and placing it in her book bag. "Come on Moka! Let's get to class!"

* * *

Ranma shuddered suddenly as he felt a chill creep down his back.

"Ranma? You okay?" Tsukune asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "Think I just got cursed again, though."

Tsukune blinked. "What? What do you mean?"

"When you've been hit with as much magical crap as I have, you start to get a feeling for it," the pigtailed boy mumbled, looking around. "It's like a seventh sense."

"You mean a sixth sense."

"No, I got my sixth sense when I was ten," Ranma explained to the increasingly confused Tsukune. "This is different. Anyway, I'm gonna be extra careful not to get wet just in case my Jusenkyou curse got locked again."

"Locked. Again." Tsukune repeated, not bothering to put the proper amount of alarm and confusion in his voice. By now it was implied.

Ranma nodded, rolling his eyes. "Yeah. It happens every once in a while. Some moron decides to spite me and comes up with some pressure point or magical ladle or SOMETHING to stick me as a girl until I find the cure."

"That's..." Tsukune hesitated. "Uh... what's that like?"

Ranma stopped in the hallway and took a moment to gaze forlornly out the window. "Tsukune, we should be grateful for what we've been given when we're born."

'What's that supposed to mean?' the younger boy asked as he waited for his friend to come back to the conversation. Several seconds later though, Ranma was still peering outside, although his expression was less melodramatic and more concerned.

"Hey... what's that?" Ranma asked, leaning closer to the window as he saw a dark shape descending through the air.

_CRASH!_

A few seconds after the unexpected impact, Tsukune slowly cracked an eye open as he huddled on the floor, his arms over his head.

"Oi, what now?" Ranma mumbled, standing over the younger human as he glared at the figure in the middle of the room. "It's not even homeroom and I already have my second fight of the day?"

A snort came from the largish creature that had broken into the hall, and Tsukune's expression darkened as all around him the other students ran for cover. Standing in the middle of the hall was a creature with wings and a tail whose skin seemed to be covered in obsidian scales. Twin horns curved over its ears, and both its heavy legs and arms ended in thick talons. The creature wasn't especially enormous - Saizo had been much bigger - but still dwarfed the humans at six feet in height, to say nothing of its wings that nearly doubled its stature.

"W-Wait! That armband!" Tsukune turned as he heard someone unfamiliar shout in panic.

"An Enforcer? Seriously?"

"Oh man, what did Saotome do to piss them off?"

"SILENCE!" the winged monster shouted, causing the spectators to either stop talking or scurry away from the scene. Then it pointed at Ranma. "Saotome! I've come for you!"

"Yeah, I figured," Ranma mumbled, cracking his neck to either side. "I mean, either that or you're here to pick on Tsukune, and either way I'll be kicking your ass. So whaddya want?"

"I think you know why I'm here," the Enforcer said smugly, his beaked mouth curving into a smirk. "Or can it be that you don't recognize me in this form? Very well! It's only fair for a criminal to know the name of his judge, is it not? My name is Keisu Haruo!"

Ranma grit his teeth as he moved into a combat stance. "I see. And here I thought you'd learned your lesson back at the bus stop. But fine, I can-"

"No, no," Tsukune suddenly butted in, tapping Ranma on the back, "that was Saizo, not Haruo."

Ranma blinked. "Oh, right. So is this that Explorer's Club guy I beat up?"

"Maybe... I never got his name," Tsukune considered.

A vein popped up on Haruo's head. "I'm not in the Explorer's Club! Only an idiot would join a club run by Jadeite!"

"Hey! They're not all idiots! Some of 'em are just wimps!" Ranma countered angrily as Tsukune sighed in defeat. "And anyway, I still don't remember who you are."

Haruo's eyebrow twitched as he stood up straight, having held a combat stance long enough that he was starting to get cramps. "You really don't remember? You made a spider attack me!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Wait, I thought you were a hellhound."

"No, Ranma, that's Gamaroshi, not Keisu," Tsukune corrected with no small measure of discomfort, "and what's this about the spiders attacking people? I thought they were trained."

"They are," Ranma insisted, turning around fully to speak to his roommate. "That's actually part of the training, but... look, just don't make any cat noises and you'll be fine."

"What IS it with you and cats?" the younger boy asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"STOP IGNORING ME!" Haruo roared, causing the two humans to wince at the volume and reluctantly turn back to the enraged monster. "That's enough! Whether or not you remember, I'm taking you in!"

Then the black gargoyle spread his wings and jumped up, claws slashing forward as he propelled himself toward Ranma through the air. "In a body bag, that is!"

* * *

"Hello again everyone! It sure has been busy this chapter, hasn't it?" Shizuka beamed happily. "This time, we're going to talk about gargoyles!"

Laid on the blackboard was an outline of Haruo's monster form with circles around the wings and arrows pointing to its hands and feet.

"Gargoyles can be traced all the way back to ancient Egypt, but only came to prominence in Europe during medieval times when artistic architecture became commonplace. Gargoyles vary more than other monsters in physiology, but all varieties have rock-like skin and are bipedal, and the vast majority has wings."

Shizuka pointed to a second sketch which had Haruo's outline standing on top of a clock tower. "Gargoyles have adapted a 'stone form' in which their body hardens further and takes on all the apparent characteristics of a simple statue. This allows them to inhabit even heavily populated human settlements without being discovered. It is only recently that gargoyles have started taking on human form and tried living among humans properly, and opinions are split over whether or not the current state of affairs is an improvement."

Then she frowned. "Despite what certain human cartoons have to say on the topic, a gargoyle's stone form isn't a debilitating condition caused by sunlight, but a natural defense mechanism that they can activate at will. However, gargoyles have excellent night vision and aren't very stealthy creatures when active, so the vast majority are nocturnal."

Shizuka tapped the first diagram again in the chest area. "In battle gargoyles don't have much as far as special abilities, but they have fearsome strength and their skin is rock-hard even when not in statue form. They're also surprisingly agile considering their weight, both in the air and on the ground, and are feared by most other flying monsters. In general gargoyles aren't too aggressive, as sharing living space with humans for centuries has bred out most of the territorial instincts that many other monsters suffer from."

"Still, they DO have the short temper that many other monsters suffer from, so try not to get on their bad side! If you do end up fighting one, you'll find that its body is impervious to all but the strongest attacks. Its wings, however, are surprisingly sensitive, and gargoyles hate being grounded."

With another bright smile, Shizuka bowed. "See you next time!"

* * *

Ranma launched to the side to avoid the attack, grabbing Tsukune and hauling him out of harm's way along with him. "Ha ha, very clever. You make that one up yourself or does your grandpa write your lines for you?"

"Ranma! Don't insult him until AFTER you put me down, please!" the younger boy asked, disengaging from his roommate. "Should I tell Miss Nekonome you'll be late?"

Ranma began cracking his knuckles as Haruo snarled and approached cautiously. "Might as well skip the whole class, actually."

"Ranma, you almost never attend homeroom anymore! What if you get held back or something?" Tsukune insisted.

Ranma ducked under a swing of gargoyle claws, and then dove under a following tail sweep before rolling to his feet and slamming an open palm into Haruo's back, staggering the gargoyle. "They already made me a freshman again; what would be the point?"

"Grraaugh!" Haruo whirled about with his wings extended, the tips grazing Ranma's shirt and tearing through it even as it failed to cut flesh. "Shut up and fight, pest!"

"Oh, give it a rest," Ranma mumbled, brushing off his chest before bouncing a few feet away for some extra space. "By the way, for the record, you're one of those Enforcer guys, right? Those so-called 'campus police' officers?"

Another vein popped up on Haruo's horned skull. "I was the one who told you about us, idiot!"

"Yeah, whatever," the pigtailed boy said dismissively before pointing to the large hole in the hallway where a window used to be. "You just destroyed a window and a good section of wall for... what? To attack me? Should you really be destroying the school while you're enforcing the peace?"

Haruo snorted as he lunged forward, swiping with both claws as Ranma ducked. "Collateral damage is sadly inevitable when dealing with dangerous miscreants like yourself!"

Ranma back flipped over another tail sweep, and then bunched up his legs while standing on his hands before shooting his feet upward into a kick that slammed his opponent's head back and sent the gargoyle reeling. "Are you for real? You could have just, you know, walked up to me to arrest me."

"And give you the opportunity to get away?" the gargoyle growled, leaping at Ranma with a double-handed slash that tore a few more strips of cloth from the martial artist's shirt as he evaded. "Do you know how long it took me to track you down?"

Several of the surrounding students sweatdropped at the admission.

"Seriously? Couldn't an Enforcer... I dunno, look up his class schedule or something?"

"It's not like Saotome's hard to find at all."

"He's definitely the most famous freshman, and he tends to stand out."

"Whatever. I'm still getting over the fact that the Enforcers are actually arresting someone rather than trolling for bribes."

"'Trolling'? Did you seriously say that? Dude, not PC!"

Both fighters largely tuned out the comments of the spectators, although Ranma noted with some amusement that his opponent was steadily becoming more and more enraged. "Look, I don't even know why you're fighting me. If you want to arrest me for breaking some stupid rules, fine, I'll go with you."

Haruo snorted noisily as he tried to find an angle of attack that would keep his dexterous foe from dodging. "Don't tell me how to enforce order! **I** cast judgment upon **YOU**, miscreant!"

"All right, fine, have it your way," Ranma said tiredly as he sway from side to side, looking bored. "But you're just digging your own grave, here. I mean, you're obviously better at flying than brawling, and yet you're fighting me indoors with a low ceiling? Seriously, there's no way you can wi-"

_Crack!_ Time seemed to stop as Ranma's foot suddenly sunk into the tile flooring, his reflexes failing him completely as one leg sunk through the floor up to his ankle.

Naturally, the pigtailed boy's first reaction was to try and pull his foot out, but he found that despite the middle of the tile being weak enough for his considerably light step to break through it, the rest seemed curiously sturdy, and his efforts to free his leg produced nothing but soft cracking noises and a very satisfied smirk from his opponent.

"There's a lesson to be learned here, I just know it," Ranma mumbled to himself just moments before Haruo's claws tore into his abdomen.

"Ranma!" Tsukune gaped as he watched his roommate go flying into a door as blood spattered across the hallway.

"It's okay... I'm okay..." Ranma mumbled as he slid down onto the floor, wobbling slightly as the door rattled behind him. "Just a lucky break. I've still got thi-"

Once again the pigtailed boy was interrupted, this time by the heavy, reinforced door he had slammed into falling forward onto his back and staggering the martial artist as he fought to stay standing.

Haruo laughed victoriously as he charged forward, curling his wings around his body and plowing into his opponent like a stone wrecking ball. The attack easily smashed aside the door and much of the doorway, and Ranma grunted painfully as he felt his back hit an uneven metal surface that crumpled beneath the force of the impact.

He also felt a great deal of liquid pouring against his back, too... warm liquid, just above room temperature. And the smell was...

Cracking open his eyes, he saw that Haruo was standing over him, glancing about the room in confusion. Trying to ignore the mass of pain that was his torso, Ranma also twisted around to see what he had crashed into.

"Gasoline," the pigtailed boy mumbled, staring at the barrels and smaller canisters arranged rather haphazardly in the supply closet he had been pushed into. The drum he had broken open upon entering was already mostly empty, having covered the floor of the room with fuel.

"Uh... yes. Gasoline," Haruo mumbled, obviously just as confused. "It seems we... well, the school... keeps a gasoline stockpile."

"Why? There's only one vehicle that ever comes here!" Ranma protested as he started to get up.

Haruo snarled and promptly dismissed his surroundings, grabbing the martial artist's shoulders and forcing him down. "Who cares? It's over for you, Saotome!"

Ranma grit his teeth as he grabbed the gargoyle's wrists, mentally going through the list of maneuvers that could see him through this debacle.

"Say, uh... gargoyles don't have fire breath or anything like that, do they?" Ranma asked seriously, looking up at the monster holding him down.

Haruo promptly shook his head. "Even if I did, no way would I use it now."

"Okay, good," Ranma mumbled, his lips curling into a smile. "In that case, it's over for-"

"Hey! Put out that cigarette, man! Class is already starting!" came an unfamiliar voice from outside the room, in the hall.

"All right, geez. What's with all the ruckus around here, anyway? There a fight going on?" A second voice asked as a pair of students passed by the storage room.

That, of course, was of less interest to Ranma and Haruo than the lit cigarette being tossed negligently into the closet without a glance as to where it might land.

As the smoldering embers plummeted to the floor and Haruo mumbled something weakly about littering regulations, Ranma simply sighed. "Okay, now I'm starting to think that something's going on, here."

* * *

"Wow. I don't think I've ever had a class cancelled on account of fire before," Moka mumbled as she stared at the ash-covered halls that led to her homeroom.

"Well, you haven't taken any classes with Professor Richard, then," a fire technician countered as he wound up a length of fire hose. "Speaking of which, it's almost time for this morning's inferno. Man..."

As the rather cynical man stalked off with his fellow firefighters in tow, Yukari observed the surroundings with a more analytical eye. True, her homeroom class was in the opposite direction, and was still going on, but she decided that these events were important enough to sacrifice even her homeroom attendance.

"You say the floor actually cracked? Right beneath him?" the young witch asked to a bystander who was loitering around after the fight now that he had no class.

"It was uncanny. Right under him. And he couldn't get free in time at all. And after THAT, the door managed to fall on him even though it's supposed to open inward. I mean, how does that even happen?"

Yukari nodded wordlessly at the description. 'They're definitely the effects of the curse. It worked! Although...' honestly, Yukari thought that encountering such unlikely obstacles in battle was a bit lethal where bad luck was concerned. The curse was supposed to be painful and humiliating, but not fatal.

'But then again...' "Saotome did survive, right?" Yukari asked, trying to sound mostly uninterested.

"Yup. Dunno how, after an explosion like that. Maybe he's a fire-based monster?" the nameless bystander wondered. "Anyway, I think Aono helped him to the infirmary, and I saw the firefighters chuck a scorched statue outside once the fire died down, so I think they'll both be okay."

Yukari nodded and then turned away, promptly dismissing the other student. 'It's a... little harsher than what I had expected, but not too bad. The important thing is that Ranma gets what's coming to him! Saotome brought this on himself!'

* * *

Tsukune sighed wearily as he finished washing away the scorch marks off of his face and arms, the water in the sink an ugly gray due to his efforts.

"That whole fight was just bizarre. It looked like Ranma had it all in hand, but what's with that turn of events?" the human mumbled as he wiped off his face.

A moment later he stepped out of the bathroom and into the infirmary waiting room, ready to sit down and await further news of Ranma's condition.

"Tsukune! You came to see me!" _Whump!_

Instead, he found himself tackled to the ground as an excitable succubus girl dove into his arms.

"Ow! Kurumu? What are you doing here?" Tsukune asked, struggling to get his arms free from his amorous suitor.

Kurumu pouted and let go of Tsukune so that she was merely straddling him rather than pinning him down. "You mean you didn't come here for me? Aw, phooey!"

"I didn't even know you were injured! What happened?" the human asked, his concern momentarily overriding his discomfort at the awkward position.

The succubus' pout turned into a frown. "That brat Sendo hacked off my tail last night, for some reason. Wouldn't tell me why, either." Then she brightened as a long, spade-tipped appendage curled up from under her skirt. "But look! Miss Madaraki did some work on it and now it's as good as new!"

"That's a relief," Tsukune said honestly, slowly crawling out from under Kurumu's shapely thighs. "I'm actually waiting to hear about Ranma's condition. He was just admitted."

"Eh? What's the matter with him? Finally bit off more than he could chew?" Kurumu asked, looking concerned herself as she stood up.

Tsukune shook his head hesitantly. "No... well... I'd almost say it was an accident, but..."

Before Kurumu could ask for any details, Fran Madaraki entered the room from an operations center, with Ranma following behind her.

"Ranma! You're on your feet already?" Tsukune asked, impressed as always with his roommate's resilience.

"Eh, if something like that was enough to take me down, I would have been burnt to a crisp ages ago," the pigtailed boy bragged. Sure enough, his skin looked darkened and slightly oily from the applied ointments, but no other burn damage was evident. He did have bandages wrapped around his stomach which were visible thanks to the tear in his shirt, but Tsukune had to figure that the lacerations had to have been cauterized in the blast anyway.

"Your body seems considerably resistant to extreme heat, Saotome. A fortunate trait, as you seem to suffer a great deal of it," Fran said with an unassuming smile.

Ranma shrugged. "Well, I never gave it too much thought, but a while back I ate this magic pill that was supposed to offer heat resistance... at the time it was just to deal with this stupid pressure point, but maybe there was more to it."

Kurumu turned back toward Tsukune. "Well, it looks like everyone's better! Let's go-" _Chomp!_

"YOW!" Ranma shouted as the spade on Kurumu's tail split into a mouth of razor-sharp teeth and clamped onto his arm, taking the martial artist completely by surprise. "What the hell is that? Get it off!"

Kurumu paled as she looked back and saw what was happening, and Tsukune's eyes bugged out.

"Kurumu! Your tail! What happened to your tail?"

"I don't know! It's not supposed to do that!"

Fran blinked and cocked her head to one side as she stared critically at the appendage in question.

Ranma growled and grabbed hold of Kurumu's tail, eliciting a yelp from the succubus.

"Ow! Stop that! You're hurting me!" Kurumu complained, grabbing hold of Ranma arm in turn.

"You're hurting me too! What am I supposed to do?" the pigtailed boy asked.

"Oh dear. I didn't expect this," Fran mumbled while rubbing her chin.

"Didn't expect what? What did you do?" Kurumu asked desperately. Ranma had weakened the pressure on her tail considerably, but was still understandably reluctant to let go.

Fran smiled angelically as she explained. "It occurred to me that your tail lacks a defensive mechanism to ward off predators that might take it off, so I made the appropriate adjustments."

"It doesn't need defenses against 'predators'! It's not an issue!" Kurumu protested.

"Then how did the tail get severed in the first place?" Fran asked curiously.

"Sendo is NOT a 'predator'!"

The head nurse shrugged. "Well, be that as it may, it seemed like a prudent method to deal with all manner of hostile organisms. The fact that it attacks clearly non-hostile associates is an unforeseen problem, however."

"Yeah, speaking of which, a little help?" Ranma almost begged, gritting his teeth.

"It will likely release you soon," Fran reassured him. "And I have plenty of antivenom on hand, so you should be conscious again and ready to leave within the hour."

"Antivenom? This thing's poisonous?" Ranma asked, glancing at his arm. "But I don't feel any po-WHOA okay, yeah, there it is." _Thud!_

Tsukune sweatdropped as his roommate collapsed, and Kurumu released a slightly guilty sigh of relief as her tail was released.

"Miss Madaraki, fix my tail back to normal!" Kurumu demanded hotly. "I don't need it to bite people!"

"Very well, if you're sure," the bio-geneticist said with obvious disappointment. "How about a supercharged adrenal gland or sensory organ?"

"No! I want a tail! An ordinary devil's spade!" the succubus protested. Tsukune, having no part in the debate, opted to drag Ranma back to an infirmary bed.

"Like, a spade from an actual devil? That could be useful, but I don't have any willing donors on hand... Oh! How about a retractable filament blade? It will require a whole new muscle group, but-"

"Stop that!"

* * *

Roughly an hour later, Ranma stumbled out of the infirmary and into the main hall, still looking a bit worse for wear but really wanting to get out of the infirmary.

"Hope Kurumu'll be okay," the pigtailed boy mumbled, recalling that the succubus was still being treated and occasionally yelling at the nurse to ensure nothing extra got added to her new tail. After a few minutes of staggering through the hall, his body began to react to the improved circulation and Ranma felt much of the earlier queasiness and weakness vanish.

"Well, now it's just a question of where to go next," the martial artist mumbled. "What time is it anyway? Is it lunch yet?" He was certainly hungry enough to eat, but Ranma was well aware that school lunch schedules rarely coincided adequately with his appetite.

"E-Excuse me... are you... are you Saotome Ranma?"

Ranma turned sharply at the question, quite surprised that someone had managed to get so close to him without his noticing.

The person who had identified him was a petite girl with pointed ears and dark cobalt skin, a color which didn't coincide with any human race that Ranma had ever heard of. She had even darker hair and a heart-shaped face, and although she was rather cute Ranma couldn't recall seeing her before.

"Yeah, I am. Have we met?" Ranma asked, keeping his guard up but trying to sound friendly at the same time.

"No... um... I've seen you before, though," the girl mumbled as she stared at the floor, a dark flush over her cheeks. "That is, I wasn't, like, stalking you or anything! I swear! It's just... you're so popular! And strong... and handsome... and hung like a-"

"So! What can I do for you, anyway?" Ranma asked, wanting to finish the conversation and go about investigating exactly where he was supposed to be at the moment. Also, the girl was giving him an odd vibe.

Well, an odd vibe besides the "schoolgirl crush" vibe that he was picking up. It was obvious enough, but something else about the dark-skinned girl was seriously bothering him.

"W-Well, my name is," the sound that followed could only be described as a hundred rakes being dragged over blackboards while tortured puppies whined in horrific concert in the background, and Ranma very nearly fell comatose from the hellish noise before it stopped mercifully, "but my friends usually call me Tobaki," the girl finished shyly.

"Oh-kay... Tobaki," Ranma said uncertainly. "And?"

"I was w-wondering," Tobaki said quietly, staring at the floor again and drawing a circle with her toe, "if you have a girlfriend yet..."

'Ah. Okay. Well, at least I can nip this in the bud easily enough,' Ranma thought. "Sorry, but I'm spoken for. I'm engaged, you see," he explained bluntly, scratching his head underneath his pigtail.

The dark-skinned girl looked crestfallen for a moment, but then seemed determined as she stared up into Ranma's eyes. "Hey... do you... want to see my true form?"

Ranma expression was perfectly blank. "Uh... isn't that... against the rules or something?"

"I haven't shown it to anyone else," Tobaki pressed, clasping her hands in front of her chest. "Will you be... my first?"

"Uhhhhhh..." Ranma glanced around him, but as the halls seemed to be completely empty save for the two of them, no useful distractions seemed to be forthcoming. "Er... all right, sure. Why not?"

Tobaki promptly opened the door to a conveniently empty classroom and stepped inside, coyly gesturing with a finger for Ranma to follow.

The martial artist hesitated at first, but eventually rationalized that there was no danger and followed the girl into the room, allowing the door to close behind him.

* * *

"She's trying to WHAT? But she... it's... ugh... that's disgusting..." Shizuka Nekonome said queasily, her normal cheerful demeanor completely drained as she held her stomach. On the blackboard behind her in shaky, barely readable letters was the word "Yochlol".

"Just... Google it or something," the nekomata mumbled as she staggered away with a hand over her mouth.

* * *

Tsukune frowned as he, Moka and Kurumu left the infirmary, the last enormously pleased as her new, perfectly normal tail swished back and forth behind her.

"You're sure you didn't see Ranma leave? What if he was still feeling the effects of the poison?" the human asked nervously, glancing back and forth as if clues to his whereabouts might be lying on the floor.

"Nope. But Miss Madaraki said he'd be fine, didn't she?" Kurumu asked, shrugging. "What are you so worried about Ranma for? He can take care of himself."

"Normally I'd agree with you, but..." Tsukune trailed off as he considered all the times Ranma had thrashed the monsters that had attacked him. "But still, he took a beating in that fight this morning."

"You said that was a fluke, right? Just bad luck!" Kurumu said dismissively, patting down her skirt. "I'm sure something that crazy isn't going to happen again."

Moka winced at that. "Maybe... Maybe we should check up on him. Just in case."

Kurumu raised an eyebrow. "What? You too?" She glanced back and forth between Moka and Tsukune as they gave each other doubtful looks. "What's all the sudden concern for Ranma? What do you think could possibly be happening to him that's so horrible?"

"!"

The trio of students flinched simultaneously as a blood-curdling shriek blasted through the halls, followed a moment later by a vaguely red-and-black streak blasting through the halls at similar speeds.

"What was THAT all about?" Kurumu asked, holding down her skirt against the sudden gust of wind.

"Waaaaaaaaah!"

Before anyone could address Kurumu's question, the trio's attention was seized by a dark elf that none of them had seen before running past them and dashing into the infirmary, sobbing desperately all the while.

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but what was THAT all about?" Kurumu asked while sounding marginally more irritated.

Moka sighed heavily as the weight on her conscience proved too heavy to bear any longer. "Guys... we need to find Yukari."

"Sendo? What does she have to do with this?" Tsukune asked. "Is she setting up Ranma somehow?"

"Yes," Moka said before hesitating, "well... it's something like that, anyway. I don't think she realized exactly how destructive her plan would be, though."

"So this is all a part of their stupid prank war," Tsukune groused, shaking his head. "Moka, do you know where we can find her?"

As Moka nodded, Kurumu scoffed. "I still think you guys are overreacting, here. This is Ranma freaking Saotome we're talking about. Seriously, what's the worst that she can do to him?"

* * *

"Huff... huff... huff..." Ranma panted heavily as he stood in the hallway of the next building over, his hands resting on his knees. "Never thought... huff... I'd meet a girl... huff... scarier than Kodachi... huff..."

Taking a moment to wipe off a patch of noxious yellow slime that had gotten on his sleeve, Ranma abolished his most recent emotional trauma and once again set about analyzing his situation.

"There's definitely something going on, here. Even MY luck isn't usually this bad," the pigtailed boy mumbled to himself as he straightened. "Then again, there's not much to be done about it. And it's not like I've had to deal with anything TOO dangerous."

With his confidence instantly restored, Ranma turned around in preparation to go on with his day as normal.

Professor Richard stood alone in the hallway in front of him, the warlock's glowing yellow eyes boring into Ranma's crystalline blue ones.

"How odd. I'm suddenly very, very bored," Richard said, raising his hands as they began to glow with eldritch power no mortal could even comprehend.

Ranma's eye twitched. "Well, so much for that rationalization," he mumbled as he prepared to fight for his life.

* * *

It didn't take long for Moka to find Yukari, although it was odd for the vampiress to be in the role of the pursuer rather than the pursued.

Although Moka didn't know of any of Yukari's classes save Jadeite's, she knew where the witch usually ate lunch by herself and figured that Yukari might retreat to the same area if she didn't have anything better to do and didn't want to go all the way back to her room.

As it so happened, Tsukune, Kurumu and Moka were on their way there when Kurumu spotted Yukari crouched behind a windowsill and peeking over it, as if she was spying on someone outside the school building.

"Yukari? What are you doing?" Moka asked, glancing out the window and not seeing anything but a large paved patio and another building across it.

Yukari glanced at the trio approaching her, and then quickly turned back to her vigil. "I'm observing my opponent."

"You mean Ranma? Where?" Tsukune asked, searching the patio. There were a few students loitering out there, but no one he recognized. "I don't see him out there. And what's with all those flashing lights from building C?"

"That's my best guess as to where Saotome is," Yukari murmured, wincing as one of the distant windows blew out in a burst of massive ice spikes. "It occurs to me that, as effective as this tactic has been, the reprisal for the misfortune I've brought him may well be beyond my ability to withstand were he to think of a proportional response."

"That's, uhm, kind of why we're here," Moka said uncomfortably as spears of lightning rained down on the building and nearly blinded the four students. "We think that what's happening to Ranma has been a bit too..."

"You think it's too much?" Yukari asked, turning toward the vampiress.

"We think it's too LETHAL," Tsukune corrected, arms crossed over his chest. "Until now this was all just harmless nonsense, but what Ranma's been through just this morning would have killed most people five times over!"

Yukari snorted and stood up, staring disdainfully at Tsukune. "Saotome is not most people. Has it occurred to you that maybe he's suffering these kinds of incidents because he's powerful enough to find them merely inconvenient rather than fatal?"

_BOOM!_ Tsukune's face darkened as a glowing green meteor smashed into the side of the school building across the patio, collapsing nearly a quarter of the structure as supernatural flame licked at the remains.

"Has it occurred to YOU that maybe you're, oh I don't know, WRONG?" Kurumu snapped, her hands on her hips. She was still confident that Ranma could handle whatever Yukari had thrown at him, but that didn't mean it was right, after all.

Moka stepped forward and took the young witch by the shoulders gently, causing a deep blush to creep over Yukari's features. "Yukari, Ranma doesn't deserve this. And on top of that, the curse has caused a lot of damage to the school and hurt a lot of other people besides him."

"Hurt other people? Like who?" Yukari demanded.

At that moment a male student ran past the window screaming while green, otherworldly flames clung to his back. "AAAAAH! SOMEBODY HELP! THE FIRE BURNS YET IT DOES NOT CONSUME! AAAAAH!"

Yukari sweatdropped as Moka continued to stare at her sternly. "Oh, come on! None of you even know that guy!"

"Yukari," Moka said, perfectly mimicking the tone of a mother taking issue with her child.

The young witch folded instantly, wilting before Moka's gaze. "All right, all right! I'll undo the curse! Besides, I suppose that Saotome HAS had enough trouble by now, hasn't he?"

An explosion that caused the walls to tremble unsteadily underlined the truth of Yukari's reluctant admission, and the witch removed a book from within her cape. "Very well; come with me and I'll dispel the effect immediately."

Yukari led the other three students into a small club room that was currently empty and laid the book out on the table in the middle of the room before quickly locating the curse in question.

"So you CURSED him? Isn't that a little hardcore for a prank?" Kurumu said disapprovingly. Moka was still playing the protective parent even if she was finally trying to bring Yukari into line, but Kurumu had no such concerns; the only thing that was keeping her from carving the young witch a set of gills was that Tsukune was in the room and she didn't want to seem hot-tempered and violent.

"The curse is supposed to be mostly harmless," Yukari snapped back as she found the right page. "Generic bad luck spell. Stuff like tripping on sidewalks, losing your wallet, missing the bus..."

"So where does the storage closet full of gasoline or the homicidal warlock teacher come in?" Tsukune asked with an eyebrow raised.

Yukari coughed into a fist as she tried not to make eye contact with her accusers. "It's POSSIBLE that the curse doesn't take into account that the victim may already be incredibly unlucky or live in an unnaturally dangerous environment. Magic is an imprecise science."

"It's not a science at all. That's why it's MAGIC," Kurumu countered.

"Okay, that's enough," Moka said firmly, glaring at Kurumu. "Yukari said she was going to undo the curse, and now we're just distracting her. Yukari, go ahead."

Kurumu and Tsukune reluctantly fell silent, each one keenly aware of distant fireballs exploding outside.

Yukari scanned the spell and then frowned as she flipped to the next page. "That's odd."

"What's odd?" Tsukune demanded, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach.

"Well, I didn't really notice before, but the spell information sort of cuts short at the end of the second page," the young witch mumbled as she flipped back. "It's almost as if... ah ha!"

Yukari smirked triumphantly as she peeled apart two pages that had been stuck together, revealing two extra sheets of information.

"There! Now I have all... the tools... I... uh..."

The room was absolutely silent for several seconds, though Tsukune noted with great relief that he could no longer hear magical detonations coming from outside.

"Is something wrong?" Moka asked, noting that the blood seemed to be draining from Yukari's face at an alarming rate.

"Uh... define 'wrong'," Yukari asked rigidly, her eyes locked on the data before her.

"Okay: 'information or circumstances that will make it harder to lift the curse on Ranma'," Tsukune said immediately, clearly losing patience with the sudden holdup.

"Er... okay, define 'something'."

"Damn it, Sendo! What's written in there, anyway?" Kurumu demanded.

Yukari winced, and Moka quickly rounded on her friends as the young witch started making puppy-dog eyes. "Guys! Leave her alone! She's trying her best!" Turning to Yukari, her gaze softened. "What's the matter? Is there no way to lift the curse?"

"No, there is... kind of," Yukari said, twiddling her thumbs. "All you have to do is survive long enough, and the summoned spirit will eventually appear. Destroy the spirit, and the curse is lifted."

"How long is 'long enough'?" Kurumu asked.

"Wait a minute! Forget that! What's this about 'surviving'? Didn't you say this spell was supposed to be mostly harmless?" Tsukune demanded.

"I... DID say that, didn't I?" Yukari said, laughing nervously as she conked herself on the head. "It turns out that the degree of bad luck is actually quite severe... and eventually, quite fatal." Beads of sweat began crawling down Yukari's forehead as Kurumu and Tsukune's faces darkened. "Really though, this is all the author's fault! The severity and ultimate effect of the spell are supposed to be the FIRST things you note! Not packed in a summary after the instructions and ingredients!"

"You put Ranma under a curse without even reading the entire description?" Tsukune asked, trying to keep his voice even while a vein throbbed on the side of his head.

"So much for being a genius," Kurumu snipped, finally allowing some real worry as to what would happen to Ranma.

Moka gave Tsukune and Kurumu a sharp glance, and then turned back to Yukari. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"I'm not sure," Yukari said. "But we should find Saotome immediately and help mitigate the effects of the curse as much as possible. That will frustrate the evil spirit and draw him out."

"Right!" said the others, nodding decisively.

* * *

Ranma wheezed wearily as he pushed his way through piles of scorched rubble and blossoms of razor-sharp icicles. His shirt had been reduced to tatters and his pants weren't much better. He was wet, scorched, and had a few particularly uncomfortable spots on his body that itched desperately as flakes of skin peeled off. Numerous abrasions and a few nasty gashes covered his arms and legs, and only a constant surge of adrenaline and pure focus kept him from feeling the effects of dramatic blood loss.

He was also holding a pair of long, skinny, bone-white arms in his hands, having apparently been removed from their previous owner.

"I just want it on record that you're totally overreacting," Richard said as he watched his student aide stomp off angrily. Green, necrotic ooze that glowed faintly and smelled sickening gushed from the gaping wounds under his shoulders, but the undead magus only seemed mildly irritated by the dismemberment. "I was only trying to kill you a** little**. You didn't have to get that mad."

"Shut up," Ranma groused, not looking back at his physical science teacher as he stalked off. "You can have these back next time we have class."

"Bring glue!" Richard called before he turned around and sauntered away.

Ranma promptly entered the nearest men's restroom to wash himself off and think about his next course of action.

"All right, so I'm getting the feeling that I might be in some real danger, now. Maybe I should hide out until..." Ranma trailed off as he thought about that sentence. Hold out until when? He didn't know what was going on at all, although he had a feeling that the earlier magic he had sensed had something to do with it. 'Either that or it's just a big "kill Ranma" conspiracy. Wouldn't be the first.'

Still, that did leave the problem of not knowing how long it would last and having no clue as to what to do about it in the meantime.

'Maybe I can just hide out somewhere or get out in the open where-'

His thoughts were interrupted as the lights in the bathroom suddenly failed, surrounding Ranma with absolute darkness.

Aside from a surprised blink, the pigtailed boy didn't react much. It took a lot more than sudden darkness to frighten Ranma Saotome.

Of much greater interest was the bright white text that suddenly appeared over the mirror that Ranma had been using to wash up.

"'It is pitch black'," Ranma read curiously, "'You are likely to be eaten by a grue'. What the hell's a grue?"

There was a slight squeaking noise as one of the bathroom stalls opened nearby, and Ranma noted with increasing discomfort that a throaty growling noise was coming from somewhere nearby.

"Well, I'd better be on my way then," the martial artist mumbled as he started toward the door, projecting an aura of complete calm and confidence.

Evidently this did nothing to dissuade the creature lurking in the darkness from attack, and the pigtailed boy leapt into action as he sensed something leaping for his back.

Deadly claws went wide as Ranma ducked into a low roundhouse kick, and he felt his leg smack into something before a dull impact revealed that he had knocked down his attacker.

"Leaving now!" the martial artist said, grimacing when he felt large, thick talons close around his leg that had been extended for the kick.

"Rrrraaugh!" the grue snarled as its dragged its prey closer, its red eyes gleaming as it opened its mouth.

* * *

At the usual blackboard that featured the monster encyclopedia entries Shizuka Nekonome was nowhere to be found, instead replaced by an "On break" sign stamped to the top.

Underneath the sign was a very succinct description, consisting of the words "Grue," "darkness," and "BAD," with the last entry written in very large letters and underlined several times.

* * *

"Leggo, freak!" Ranma shouted, laying punch after punch into the mysterious attacker but failing to loosen its grip on his leg. His attacks did seem to keep the rest of it at bay though, and from the grue's frustrated snarls, he could only guess that he was beating the beast back.

"Shrrreah!" with a terrifying screech, the grue finally stopped trying to bite its prey and lashed out with its other claws, raking them across Ranma's shoulder and chest.

Ranma grit his teeth against the pain, although by this point the lacerations were merely the newest of dozens of such wounds. "All right, I'm sick of fighting something I can't even see!"

Kicking away the grue's fumbling talons to give himself a moment's respite, Ranma focused through the waves of anger and fear within his being and seized hold of his confidence, the assurance that no matter what was thrown at him, he would survive and overcome.

"Mouka-"

"SCREEEEE!" Before the pigtailed boy could gather more than a glimmer of ki energy into his hands, the grue holding him shrieked in terror and released him, retreating instantly from the miniscule orb of light.

A moment later the stall door from earlier slammed shut, and Ranma lay on the floor, blinking as he stared down at the marble of shining blue hovering above his palm.

"Well, time to bail," he mumbled, scrambling to his feet and rushing toward the front door. Only once daylight poured into the bathroom from the fully-lit hallway did he allow his ki to vanish.

Tsukune blinked as he saw Ranma stagger out of the men's restroom, a set of fresh slash wounds on his chest and leg and an expression of extreme annoyance on his face.

"Ranma! Are you okay?" the younger human asked, rushing up to meet his roommate as the trio of girls behind him followed at a more subdued pace.

"Oh. Tsukune," Ranma said, his voice sounding almost mechanical. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You don't LOOK fine," Tsukune said critically. "How much blood have you lost today? And we need to find you a new shirt before you catch a cold!"

"Naw, I don't catch colds," Ranma insisted even as he wobbled to and fro. "I'm good. Totally, completely..." he started to tilt to one side, and Kurumu quickly dashed forward to support that side and hold him up. "... good. No problems here."

"The constant emotional and physical trauma has rendered him delusional. Or stupid. Maybe both," Yukari said as she flipped through the spell book. "We need to get him to somewhere safe to rest."

"What kind of place is 'safe' from bad luck?" Kurumu asked.

"I don't know, but here isn't it," Yukari answered, stepping past Ranma and the others. "Come on, we can figure something out while he's lying down!"

"So... is this all Yukari's prank, then?" Ranma asked as Kurumu helped him along. Not that he needed any help, of course, but he was feeling a BIT tired.

Moka smiled nervously as she followed along. "It's... more of an accident, really. She didn't mean to do all this to you."

"Except for that thing with Kurumu's tail biting you. My only regret there is that I didn't think of it independently," Yukari corrected, much to Moka's chagrin. Then she stopped at a closet and grabbed the knob. "Maybe a small, enclosed space would work," she mused as she opened the door.

Ranma sweatdropped as he stared into the supply closet. "You know, I haven't seen ONE electric saw on campus, ever. So why would someone keep so many spare blades?" Indeed, the entire interior of the closet was lined with rotary saw blades of all sizes arranged on pegs, in stacks, and a few on fragile-looking strings that could easily collapse at any moment.

A perfectly pale Kurumu backed Ranma slowly away from the closet, sweat crawling from her forehead. "All right, nobody make any sudden moves... Sendo, you close the door CAREFULLY, all right?"

At that moment, a pair of students in lab coats walked by while carrying a large, heavy machine of some sort.

"Where do you think we should dispose of this alarmingly powerful and possibly still functional electromagnet?"

"Well, I suppose we could just-"

The boys were silenced as Tsukune and Moka tackled them to the ground, and Yukari quickly shut the door to the anomalously dangerous closet, wincing as she heard the sound of clattering metal a moment later.

"All right, let's try somewhere else," Moka said as she got up, Tsukune apologizing profusely to the unknown students behind her. "Maybe somewhere outside?"

"It couldn't be much worse than** that**," Yukari quipped as she once again took the lead. "Let's go!"

Ranma cleared his throat again as he let Kurumu help him along to the door leading to the patio area. "Anyway, I've gotta give you credit; this is a pretty solid trick you pulled off. I was starting to think-"

_Clong!_ Kurumu flinched as a wash bin plummeted down onto Ranma's head the instant they stepped outside, silencing the pigtailed boy.

"A wash bin? Well, I suppose that's not too bad," Tsukune mused, watching at the metal bin tilted slowly to one side.

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ One by one, three full-sized bowling balls rolled out of the bin before the wash bin itself bounced onto the ground, and Kurumu grunted as she suddenly felt herself supporting Ranma's weight all by herself.

"I'm DREADFULLY sorry!" Came a voice from the edge of the roof above, and the students that were still conscious looked up to see the bus driver stooped over the edge of the roof, puffing on his pipe. "Are all of you all right? I'm so embarrassed I could just DIE!"

Tsukune glanced down at the bowling balls, and then back up at the bus driver. "WHY?"

The driver cocked his head to one side. "Why? I... well... it makes sense to... erm..." he stopped talking and rubbed his chin as his brow creased. "That's funny. Carrying three bowling balls to the gym over the roof in a wash bin made perfect sense when I thought of it." Then he shrugged. "A rather GRAVE mistake; my arms are DEAD tired!"

"I'm starting to dislike that person," Tsukune grumbled as he turned back to Ranma. "Is he okay?"

"Amazingly, yes," Yukari said as she checked the martial artist's pulse. "I'm going to have to adjust my assumption as to his species up a few notches; for his body to take THIS level of abuse..."

"Ahm... nah... ah mahs'r..." mumbled Ranma in a daze as Kurumu dragged him over to a picnic table.

"Seriously though, what are we supposed to do?" Kurumu asked heatedly as she put the pigtailed boy down. "Bad enough that Ranma's barely clinging to life, but what about us?"

"How long do we have to wait before the evil spirit shows up?" Tsukune asked, his tone rising in tandem with Kurumu's.

Yukari flinched as the two older students loomed over her. "I don't know! Like I said, this spell book is-"

"Excuse me, guys and GHOULS, but are you dealing with an evil spirit?"

The four conscious students glanced over to the bus driver, who had apparently gotten down from the roof and was now smoking his pipe while watching the spectacle nearby. "Maybe I can help! My skills at dealing with spirits are nothing short of SPOOKtacular!"

The students stared at the old man with varying levels of annoyance, all of them weighing the value of the help that he could possibly lend against the irritation of having to listen to him.

"Well, if you can call out the evil spirit attached to Saotome's body," Yukari began, only to step back with a yelp as the driver popped up on top of the table as if he had teleported there.

"Hmmm... really, I'd say this boy just might stand a GHOST of a chance! But there's no need to be so GRAVE, is there?" the old man cackled, lowering his pipe over Ranma's chest and then shaking out some of the embers onto the comatose martial artist.

"GYAAAARUUUGH!" A fierce roar filled the patio as darkness seemed to seep out of Ranma's body, swirling about in the air and eventually coalescing into a humanoid form standing next to the picnic table.

"Damn it! Why won't this kid just kick it!" the creature snarled. It seemed to be a thing of pure shadow, with the edges of its body frayed and fluid, like the edges of a flame in the wind. A ring of angry-looking eyes were set in its chest, and the mouth set into its faceless head grimaced angrily. "Buzz off, brats! I've got a soul to take, here!"

"Yes! That's the spirit!" Yukari shouted. "Now all we have to do is beat it!"

"Beat it?" Kurumu asked, staring at the angry shadow... thing. "How do we..."

The succubus trailed off as she noticed that Yukari, Tsukune and Moka were all backing away from her and the spirit. "Hey! Why do I have to do it? Isn't Sendo the one responsible for this?"

"After seeing what that thing did to Saotome? Not a chance!" the young witch said. "Besides, you're the strong one, right? You do it!"

"We believe in you, Kurumu!" Tsukune said, honestly wishing there was something he could do but knowing that Kurumu was a far stronger fighter than he was.

Moka remained silent, nervously fingering the Rosario around her neck.

Kurumu turned back toward the spirit, and she gulped nervously as she saw the thing's fingers thicken into curved talons. "All right, fine! Moka, back me up!"

"Me?" the vampiress asked, startled.

"If you're really a vampire, it's time to act like it! Are you the strongest of monsters or aren't you?" Kurumu demanded, hoping to grasp some thread of pride hidden underneath Moka's pacifistic shell.

The evil spirit evidently tired of the conversation, crossing its arms high around its neck (so as not to obscure its vision). "So, what I'm getting here is that you kids aren't up to snuff. Fine. I think I'll just finished off the pigtailed loser, and..." the manifested curse's ring of eyes blinked as it stared at the empty picnic bench. "Wait... where'd he go? He was just-"

_THWACK!_ The four students gathered against the spirit flinched back in surprise as they watched a bowling ball come down on top of the apparition's head, doubling it over.

Ranma stood behind the shadowy being, tossing his improvised weapon to the side. "So you're the punk that was causing all that trouble, eh? You sure don't seem like much now that you have an actual body."

The spirit's response was to turn with one arm extended, claws lashing out for Ranma's chest as the martial artist hopped back out of range.

"Ranma! You're okay?" Kurumu cried, by far the most relieved that the pigtailed boy was up for a fight.

"Of course I'm okay! Just leave these guys to me! I'll take down all three of 'em!" the martial artist cheered, only wobbling a little as he took up a fighting stance.

Tsukune and Moka sweatdropped.

"Is this really okay?"

"I feel like we should help..."

"Ha! You think you can bludgeon me like some fleshy animal?" the dark spirit taunted as it floated into the air, the eyes over its chest rotating. "I am despair! I am weakness! I am the withering sensation in your heart as the world turns against you and doom swallows your future! Nobody may escape my grasp! Nobody!"

Yukari bristled at the boasts, thumbing rapidly through the book. "This isn't good! I had no idea I summoned a spirit like this! This is-"

The young witch's concerns were drowned out by a bright flare of blue light, and the evil spirit flinched back as a corona of energy coalesced around Ranma.

"Wh-What? Hey... what do you think you're doing?" the apparition demanded.

"I'm kicking your ass, of course," Ranma snapped, moving his hands back. "If you're 'despair', then I guess that makes me 'hope'. Now that I see you, there's no way I'm gonna lose!"

"Your body is battered and broken! You can't have this much strength left! The-There's no way..." the dark spirit mumbled, stepping backward as it landed on the ground again.

"I'm used to it," Ranma said simply before he slammed his hands together. "MOUKA TAKABISHA!"

None of the spectators could tell exactly what happened in that moment as the searing blue flash obliterated their scopes of vision, but all of them felt a sudden lift in their spirits, as if the empty feeling of fear that had dominated since the hateful spirit appeared was suddenly swallowed by a cheerful confidence and inner strength.

Of course, when the light abated and they saw that only a black scorch mark remained of the spirit, none of them needed any supernatural explanation to explain their relief.

"All right!"

"You did it!"

Moka sighed wearily as Tsukune and Kurumu cheered, simply glad that the entire debacle had been finished without any need for... desperate measures. "I'm so relieved..."

Yukari gaped at the spot where the evil spirit used to be. "Y-You used a psionic pulse of opposite emotional polarity to discorporate the spirit?"

"If that means the same as shooting my ego at it, then yeah," Ranma responded, trying to catch his breath as he dusted off his smoldering hands. "Anyway, I think I give this one about a six."

Yukari blinked. "What?"

"As far as evil spirits and curses go, this one was pretty nasty, but also pretty simple to cure. So it gets a six outta ten," Ranma explained. "I've had worse, but it's still a pretty impressive spell."

The young witch stared, mouth agape as the pigtailed boy coughed into his hand.

"Not that I'm giving up the pranks or anything! No way am I gonna let you win!" Ranma insisted, crossing his arms over his chest as Moka paled considerably.

All were fairly surprised when Yukari suddenly threw herself at Ranma's feet, bowing her head onto the ground so low that the tip of her witch's hat dug into the dirt. "I'm sorry! Please forgive me!"

Before Ranma could ask any questions or make any confused noises, Yukari looked up at him, her eyes shining with admiration and awe. "It was foolish of me to oppose someone as great as you! I didn't know what I was doing!"

Ranma scratched the side of his head as the witch continued kowtowing. "Well, I AM pretty great, it's true."

"And strong! And powerful! And handsome!" Yukari said, eyes shining up at her new idol. "I was mistaken to think of you as a mere brute! If Moka is perfection in mind and beauty, then you are magnificence in wisdom and strength! Please accept me as your disciple!"

Ranma chuckled haughtily, patting the young witch on the head as he kneeled down. "Ha! You didn't need to go quite that far! But sure, why not?"

Off to the side, Moka massaged her head as she tried to come to terms with what she was seeing.

"Well... it's nice that those two are friends now, isn't it?" Kurumu asked, sweatdropping. She was as weirded out by the scene as any of the others, but was hoping that this would at least keep Yukari on better terms with them.

"Y-Yeah. This is... good," Tsukune said, only a tinge of uncertainty in his voice.

"Heh heh heh! That's the SPIRIT!" the bus driver cheered.

"Okay, seriously, can you please leave?"

* * *

Note: Both Kouma Gamaroshi and Tobaki are students of my own creation. There are lot more of those going around than I'd hoped, but oh well. Mizore Shirayuki is from Rosario canon.

End Chapter 5

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

In the bowels of the Netherworld, a disgruntled dark spirit trudged past his giggling fellows before taking a seat on a stump of brimstone, his body still smoldering with the ki energy that had purged him from the living world.

"Dude, I can't believe you got smoked!" said a small, cackling spirit sitting on the opposite side of a divining pool with Ranma's image as the focus.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, squirt," the defeated apparition grumbled. "At least I've had work in the last decade; when was the last time you've been called in for curse duty?"

As the smaller spirit fumed, another being seemingly composed of hundreds of motes of light swirling around each other addressed the newcomer. "You gave it your best shot. And some of the stuff you pulled was rather brilliant! I especially liked the bit with the warlock. Genius!"

The dark spirit's ring of eyes blinked in confusion. "Warlock? What, you mean that Richard guy? I didn't do anything with him. Guy's way too sensitive to our kind. What are you talking about?"

* * *

"Dear Diary," Richard mumbled to himself as he clenched a pen between his toes, holding down a rather archaic-looking tome with his other foot as he leaned back in his office chair, "Tried to kill Saotome again today. That kid's proving quite resilient, and it's even more fun when I can press him hard enough to make him fight back. He took off my arms today after I got a little too cast-happy with the mid-level spells, but he still doesn't seem to see me as an actual opponent to be defeated as much as a dangerous obstacle to survive. Frankly, I blame the Japanese social structure; I enjoy abusing power as much as the next sociopath, but respect for one's superiors typically ends after the first cartload of one's peers are reduced to ashes and dumped out in the lawn."

Richard stared up at the ceiling as his toes kept scrawling words in a language forgotten by even the gods. "He deals with fire and ice easily enough; I think I'll try acid magic next. Ooh, this semester is just SO exciting!" 


	7. Fighting Trolls is Hard

"And welcome once again to 'Guess Ranma's Species', the ONLY omake segment which can't be confused with actual chapter content!" Shizuka Nekonome said cheerfully, her tail swaying back and forth.

"Today we're lucky not only because we're featuring another main character, but also because this character isn't a complete idiot! May I present Miss Yukari Sendo!"

Yukari nodded modestly from where she sat behind Shizuka, her hands folded calmly in her lap.

"So tell us, Miss Sendo, what do you think Mister Saotome really is?" Shizuka asked, her voice taking on a hushed tone to try to amplify the drama of the question."

Yukari frowned deeply as her eyes closed in concentration. "This is a question that I've researched considerably, Miss Nekonome. Even more so since I discovered how great and wonderful Saotome truly is."

Her eyes opened as her expression turned more determined. "One of the primary mistakes that others make when judging his species is looking entirely to his physical traits while dismissing his mental ones. Many of Saotome's opponents - and I'm ashamed to include myself amongst their number - dismiss him as a clueless brute, and that's where their error lies. I know very well that under Saotome's simple exterior of casual superiority lies a lethal cunning that ensures that anyone powerful enough to survive his martial prowess will fall just as certainly as those that are not. Saotome's mind is a steel trap, just as his body is a steel weapon."

Shizuka blinked, slightly overwhelmed by the analysis. "Oh... and... his species?"

Yukari nodded sharply. "My current theory suggests he is a devil. Amazing physical prowess combined with a predator's instincts which are further refined by a deceptive and devious intellect. In addition, it would explain his resistance to fire damage."

Shizuka nodded slowly. "Hmm, yes, that does make sense! Well then, until next time..." the homeroom teacher hesitated, and then turned back toward Yukari. "Quick question: if you revere Ranma so much, why don't you believe him when he says he's human?"

"Devils are notorious liars," Yukari said grimly, nodding her head as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Ah. Well then, on with the show!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer:

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 6  
Fighting Trolls is Hard

* * *

"Hmph. So here it is," mumbled an arrogant, high-pitched voice as a short figure draped in robes stepped out of the only bus that ever crossed the barrier between Tokyo and Youkai Academy, "the institution that deigns to educate **me**. What rubbish."

As the bus engine rumbled noisily, the driver stepped out behind the figure, smiling around his ever-present pipe. "Don't be so GRAVE, sonny! You've been given a second chance, haven't you? There are some who would KILL for this kind of opportunity!" The driver blew out a thick ring of smoke, and then said in a far more somber tone of voice, "If they weren't dead already, that is."

The cloaked figure glance upward at the man behind it. "You're an exceptionally irritating person. Would it trouble anyone important if you were to die in horrible agony?"

The bus driver wagged a finger as he clicked his tongue. "Now, now, sonny; you're here to learn to get along with people, aren't you? You won't have a GHOST of chance at this rate!"

Snorting contemptuously, the cloaked individual turned away and started walking toward the school. "The knowledge that I may have to deal with people like you without destroying them... rankles. But no matter." The shadowy hood turned back toward the bus. "You're sure Saotome is here?"

"DEAD certain!" the bus driver said enthusiastically, tipping his hat. "You have a good time, now! It's going to be a DREADFULLY long semester for you!" Cackling madly, the driver stepped back onto his bus as the doors slid shut, leaving the figure alone as it began the long walk toward Youkai Academy.

* * *

"Okay, I'd really like you to explain this to me," Kurumu said to Ranma as they and Tsukune waited in the lunch line with their trays. "How is it that Yukari went from hating you to worshiping you in an afternoon? Ever since that curse thing blew over, she hasn't left you alone!"

Ranma shrugged as he served himself some yakisoba. "I dunno. Maybe she just realized how awesome I am all of a sudden. Does it really matter?" Ranma had a hard time figuring out girls when they were human, his own age, and beholden to relatively simple emotional concepts such as love and hate. Putting his rather stunted sense of empathy toward figuring out Yukari seemed an exercise in futility.

"I'd be a little concerned having someone with those kinds of mood swings hanging off of me all the time," the succubus mumbled, "but I suppose I'm just curious. The way she's been treating you is just bizarre."

"I don't think it's just the last fight," said Tsukune suddenly. "If you think about it, ever since Ranma turned her little campaign against him into a prank war, she seemed unusually animated, you know? I think she was pretty excited to have someone challenge her."

Kurumu raised an eyebrow as he piled some seaweed salad on her tray. "You think so? The way Moka complained, you'd think the damn witch was being tortured."

Tsukune nodded. "Moka was being overprotective; even Yukari admitted that much. But I think she started seeing Ranma as more of a rival than an enemy, even if she herself didn't realize it. And then, once Ranma brushed off such a dangerous curse, I suppose she was just so impressed that her respect for him as a rival evolved into idol worship."

Ranma frowned. "So... she just realized how awesome I am. Isn't that what I said?" the pigtailed boy asked as he finished getting his food and left the lunch line.

Tsukune sweatdropped as Kurumu suddenly nuzzled him. "That's my Tsukune!" the succubus purred. "You really do understand a woman's heart!"

"Erm... thanks, I suppose," Tsukune said bashfully as they followed after Ranma. Granted, he WAS far more empathetic than Ranma or Kurumu, but he thought that was more because they were so self-centered rather than owing to any particular sensitivity on his part. Not that he would say that to them, of course.

"Salutations!" Yukari said cheerfully as she spotted the trio approaching their usual table, where she was already waiting with Moka.

"What's up, squirt?" Ranma said as he reached the table first, setting down his tray with a nice big gap between him and the two younger girls. Just because Yukari now considered him some sort of God made flesh didn't mean that he suddenly had to be polite after all, though it was obvious that his insulting nicknames for her held a certain amount of affection nowadays.

Tsukune and Kurumu were about to take their seats when Moka yelped and then suddenly and unwillingly slid across the length of the bench, stopping right before she crashed into Ranma. A moment later Yukari dashed behind them all to take the other seat flanking Ranma, beaming at him brilliantly as she put down her bento box.

Kurumu and Tsukune stared awkwardly at the new seating arrangement for a moment before Tsukune sat down next to Moka with Kurumu sitting next to him, all of them grasping for something to say, but coming up short.

"So Senpai, I've been thinking," Yukari said as she broke apart her chopsticks, her tone being very firm and professional.

"Senpai? Aren't we in the same grade?" Ranma asked between mouthfuls of his lunch. Granted, they shouldn't have been in the same grade, but given that Yukari was probably years ahead of him academically anyway he wasn't about to start touting his accomplishments at Furinkan. Senpai was usually reserved for upperclassmen.

"A mere technicality!" the young witch insisted, nodding to herself. "To even suggest that someone like me is on the same level as you is an unforgivable insult!"

The others at the table sweatdropped at the self-deprecation, but no one said a word. Most of them preferred it over Yukari's former arrogance, after all.

"Of course, if you don't like 'Senpai', may I refer to you as 'Master'?" Yukari asked, flushing a bit as she stared down at the table.

"Senpai is fine," Ranma deadpanned. "Anyway, you were gonna say something?"

"Yes. I was just wondering why it is that Moka drinks Aono's blood but not yours," Yukari asked bluntly.

Moka, who had been drinking a tomato juice to tide herself over until she could get some "alone time" with Tsukune's jugular, suddenly did a spit-take, spewing the rich red liquid all over and generally looking like she was having a brain hemorrhage.

Tsukune winced at the question, feeling his chest tighten suddenly even as he waited curiously for the answer.

Ranma seemed to consider the query seriously even as Moka coughed to try and clear the juice from her throat. "Well, if you're asking me... I mean, whatever she feels about drinking my blood doesn't really matter to me, because I wouldn't let her," he explained bluntly. "Personally, I don't see how Tsukune puts up with being her personal bento box. It just seems cruel to me. Probably isn't safe, either. Couldn't you get an infection that way?"

Moka glared harshly at the pigtailed boy as she finally cleared her windpipe. "I'll have you know that it's perfectly safe! And since Yukari brought it up, I wouldn't drink YOUR blood if you and I were the last humanoids on Earth!"

"Is that supposed to be an insult? Because it's actually really comforting," Ranma said to the angry vampiress.

Yukari cleared her throat before Moka could come up with a rebuttal. "Why don't you consider drinking Senpai's blood?" she said nonchalantly, as if she was discussing something of absolutely no importance. "A vampire's power waxes and wanes with the nutrients they take in just like any other creature, right?"

"Uh..." Moka hesitated, not liking where this was going.

"I'm sure that Ranma's blood contains FAR more in the way of nutrients and vitamins than Aono's," Yukari continued between mouthfuls of her own lunch, "to say nothing of the superior diffusion of spiritual energies!"

Moka desperately groped for a rebuttal as she watched Tsukune's face darken. She was saved from the trouble by Ranma, however.

"Could we NOT talk about me getting my blood sucked while I'm trying to eat?" the pigtailed boy demanded, looking annoyed. "Like I already said, no matter what Moka wants, I 'aint letting her eat me!"

Moka promptly turned her nose up. "Hmph! As if I'd even consider it when I have someone like Tsukune around!"

Tsukune's expression brightened quite a bit at the admission, though the younger human had been quietly eating his lunch the entire time.

Kurumu also watched the exchange in silence, her expression unreadable as she digested the conversation. "So, Yukari," she said suddenly, "I'll just come out and ask it: are you in love with Ranma now, or what?"

_Bump!_ The table suddenly shook as something hit the underside, and Kurumu blinked in surprise as she caught sight of an unfamiliar girl with purple hair scurrying out from under the table and practically diving into the throngs of other students. 'Who the hell was that?'

Ranma twitched badly at Kurumu's question, greatly fearing the answer. Given his trouble with girls in the past, he was really hoping to go through Youkai Academy without picking up any new suitors at all, even if he himself admitted that the prospect was ridiculous. Having a clearly pre-pubescent girl clamoring for him was not going to help the accusations of perversion he expected when he finally returned home.

To his surprise and relief, however, Yukari put his fears to rest. "Don't be absurd," the young witch said firmly. "What I feel for Senpai transcends your understanding of crude sexual urges and simple physical attraction."

"Uh... huh," Kurumu mumbled, deciding to ignore the stranger to focus on Yukari's answer. "That doesn't exactly sound like a 'no' to me." Tsukune and Moka also paid rapt attention, both of them wanting to know the answer but not having the gall to ask themselves.

Yukari sighed in that way that adults did when children failed to grasp complex concepts. "I suppose if I HAD to boil it down to an explanation you could understand, it would be that Senpai is simply too much man for someone like me to handle."

Ranma twitched again as the others' eyes bugged out at the surprising explanation.

"Love is, ultimately, an expression of emotional incentives to select the most appropriate mate to produce the best possible offspring," Yukari lectured as she dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "To that end, I can say with absolute certainty that me and Senpai are not compatible in the least. My physical inadequacy as compared to his unparalleled strength make me an inferior selection."

"Um... yeah, sure, let's go with that," Ranma said, not really understanding the explanation but getting the distinct feeling that he had just been subjected to one of the most flattering rejections ever.

Tsukune frowned. "But... if that's really what you think love is, then why are you in love with Moka?" he asked, quite certain that their pairing would be far more unlikely to produce good offspring... or any at all, for that matter.

Yukari's eyes narrowed. "I'll have you know that what I feel for Moka does NOT transcend crude sexual urges or simple physical attraction." She leaned forward so she could look past Ranma to gaze lovingly at the vampiress. "Not one bit."

Ranma stood up from his barren lunch tray and stretched. "Well, it's almost time for class to start again. And then we've got club activities tonight."

"Don't remind me," Tsukune mumbled bitterly. "We don't even have a decoy for this time in case we need to escape again."

Kurumu shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, I don't really remember what it looked like, and I don't know what it was about that stress ball that might have caused Professor Jadeite to flip out."

"I'm sure you guys'll be fine," Ranma said, turning to pat Yukari on the head. "All right runt, listen up: since I'm not going to be there to do everything myself, it's up to you to keep these guys alive, got it? Tsukune attracts trouble like a magnet attracts iron, Moka is useless in every way, and Kurumu can only handle so much on her own. I'm counting on you to see them through this, all right?"

As Moka's chopsticks snapped in her tightening fist, Yukari beamed up at the pigtailed boy, saluting him like a superior officer. "Yes, Senpai! You can rely on me!"

"Good! See you guys later!" Ranma said as he walked toward the exit, waving to his friends on his way out.

As Tsukune started piling up the trays and empty plates on the table, Moka laid a hand on his arm, causing him to freeze.

"Tsukune... I'm not... really useless, am I?" Moka asked nervously, staring up into the human boy's eyes with a doubtful expression on his face.

"Wh-What? No! No, of course not!" Tsukune said firmly, shaking his head. "That was just Ranma being Ranma."

"Actually," Kurumu butted in, "we should just get this out in the open. Moka? For a vampire, you're pretty damn useless."

Moka flinched. "What do you mean?"

"I'm just saying, the vampire is supposed to be an immortal, indestructible powerhouse, the strongest of all monsters. You don't exactly fit that profile," Kurumu said bluntly. Moka wilted immediately and started fingering her rosario nervously.

Clang! Kurumu winced as a wash bin slammed into her head from above, and she then turned a heated glare at Yukari, who was staring at the succubus with disdain.

"That's enough out of you," Yukari said firmly, slapping her witch's wand into the palm of her free hand like a disciplinarian's tool. "Moka is clearly a far more refined and enlightened manner of vampire; there's no reason at all to encourage violent behavior."

"I'm not saying she should change," Kurumu mumbled as she rubbed her head. "But she could help out every once in a while when we're fighting for our lives, at least."

"That's what we keep you around for," Yukari said harshly, sniffing haughtily as she turned around. "Anyway, I have class now. I'll see you all later for the Exploration Club. Farewell Moka, my love!"

As Yukari left and Moka wandered off after her, sulking, Kurumu turned toward Tsukune as the human boy returned the dirty lunch trays to the kitchen. "Hey, Tsukune, I just had a thought, and wanted to run it by you."

"Hm?" Tsukune gave the succubus his attention. "What's up?"

"I was just wondering... did it seem to you that Yukari was trying to set up Ranma and Moka?" Kurumu asked, rubbing her chin.

Tsukune looked uncomfortable about the question, but quickly recovered. "Nah, it can't be."

"It didn't seem that way to you? That talk about Moka drinking Ranma's blood didn't set off any red flags?" Kurumu pressed.

Tsukune shook his head firmly. "Yukari is in love with Moka. I don't know why, but she is, and she's not shy about admitting it. And since she says she's not after Ranma, why would she set Ranma and Moka up together? I'll bet she just wanted to have an excuse to eat lunch with Ranma and Moka alone, or maybe she really was concerned about Moka having a more nutritious diet."

Kurumu sighed. "Oh, Tsukune, so naive... but then, that innocence is one of the many things I love about you so!"

The human boy chuckled nervously as he pushed past the succubus, eager to end the conversation. "Well, you can think whatever you want about it, but I think it's just you. Anyway, I'm going to class now."

"Of course," Kurumu said, her smile widening into a grin. "See you later, my beloved!"

* * *

"All right people, gather 'round and listen up!" Riza Wildman shouted as she glared around the room at the members of the fight club. "This is how things're going to work around here: for the first few weeks, we train! You're going to learn some forms, push your bodies to some new limits, and learn how best to use your monster powers to assist in combat! After a couple good workouts, we'll start to stake out some territory! Eventually our goal is to have at least half the school within the control of the fight club's members!" the redhead said, grinning fiercely.

Ranma raised an eyebrow. 'Hm? That doesn't quite sound right... wait...'

"You mean the fight club doesn't have any territory right now?" Ranma asked, gathering the crowd's attention. "You said that your club tangles with the nastiest groups on campus, right? What happened to all the ground you covered last year?"

"For that matter, how come it's only freshmen in this club?" Another student asked, scratching his head. "Did this club just start up this year or something?"

"Not at all," Riza said, waving her hand before planting her fists on her hips. "I'm proud to say that the fight club had a roster of twenty members that survived to the end of last year, and we managed to secure a full third of the campus for ourselves, taking most of the territory from the monstrels and a good chunk of the classrooms that the Enforcers patrolled regularly."

Then the redhead cleared her throat. "As it so happens, the upperclassmen in the club... disappeared over the break."

"Disappeared?" Ranma asked.

"You mean they were killed?" Kouma Gamaroshi asked grimly, crossing his arms over his chest. People 'disappeared' without leaving any remains or evidence with unusual frequency around Youkai Academy, but that was mostly because many kinds of monsters tended to eat what they killed.

Riza snorted. "Don't make it sound like they lost fairly; they were ambushed and assassinated. Students tend not to keep in touch with each other outside campus, so its hard to watch each others' backs," she reasoned, seeming not to notice as several of the club's new members started to sweat or grow pale.

Then she smiled. "But that's fine! We'll start with a blank slate and conquer this place all over again!"

"F-F-Fine? How is getting hunted down and butchered fine?" demanded one student nervously. "I didn't sign up for this!"

"Actually, I think we did," said another, smaller student as he looked over the club application form. "It says explicitly in the disclaimer that the club is not responsible for its members being murdered in revenge."

"Oh, come on! Nobody reads those things!" another student insisted angrily.

Ranma watched as the club quickly split into two groups that started arguing with each other: those that didn't like these new revelations and wanted to back out, and those that either found the challenge of an impending assassination exciting or simply accepted the threat with grim determination.

"You can't seriously tell me you joined the fight club expecting things were going to be nice and easy! Where's your pride as a monster?"

"An ambush is different from a fight! If they were going to fight fair..."

"What kind of babies are you guys? You think you can expect all your battles to be handed to you clean and even?"

"You guys are idiots! If you wanna die so badly, go ahead! But count me out!"

Ranma was considering whether he should just stay quiet or cast his lot in with the students supporting the club when Riza suddenly threw a fist back into the wall behind her.

_WHAM!_ The entire room shook slightly as plaster, wood, and even the concrete behind it crumpled under her fist, and the students of the club quickly gave the faculty attendant their full attention.

"This will conclude your first test," Riza said calmly as she tore her hand from the hole in the wall. "Staring near-certain death in the face and pushing forward is the very foundation of being a warrior. If some of you think to turn tail and run now, in the face of scary rumors, how would you fare when an actual enemy stands before us?" she scoffed, sneering. "When the power of your foe threatens to overwhelm you; when your comrades lie broken and dying, do you really think you'll have what it takes to stand fast and attack?"

Several of the students winced; mostly those that were considering leaving, but Riza's imagery had even impacted a few of the more enthusiastic students.

"By all means, if you think you can't cut it, go," the redhead demanded, waving toward the exit. "For those of you that remain: if you fear, we will hammer that fear out of you. If you falter, we will push you forward. And if you die..."

She hesitated on the last point. "Well, actually, if you die then we just give a pretentious speech about how noble and honorable you were before dumping you in a shallow grave and sending your folks a sympathy card. But know that you will not be forgotten! ... For a few weeks, at least."

"I'm sure it's the thought that counts," Ranma deadpanned as several of the more cowardly students and even one of the members who had sided against them stiffly filed out the room. There were a few that had been ready to leave that seemed to have changed their minds, though, no doubt bolstered by Riza's speech about turning them into warriors.

In the end, a mere twelve members remained in the fight club by the time that Riza officially started exercises. She didn't look terribly happy about it, but seemed intent on pushing forward. "All right, you losers! Seeing as how you were all too stupid to jump ship when you had the opportunity, kiss your pampered, pansy-ass pacifistic school life goodbye!"

Ranma snorted. If his school life thus far could be considered pampered and pacifistic, then the fight club would be a real riot.

"Now I'm gonna explain how this is gonna work!" Riza continued loudly. "Most monsters are naturally territorial and suspicious of anyone else, except possibly others of their own kind! Well, get ready to break some cultural barriers, because that doesn't fly in the fight club!" She glared around the room, looking for any signs of resistance. "Frankly, I don't give a damn whether you respect each other, like each other, or even care about each other, but you WILL guide each other, help each other, and protect each other! The fight club isn't some name to flash around to push yourself to the top and get the class runt to do you favors; it is a fraternity of warriors that come together as one! You will learn to fight in pairs, and then in teams, and finally as a pack! Then we will STEAMROLL this campus, you hear me?"

There were many whoops and cheers from the remaining students, and Riza finally allowed a small smile to cross her face. "All right, then. Let's form pairs! You, the shrimpy poison guy! You'll be with Zapper over here! Claws, you're tough and fast, but kind of clumsy, so you can pair with the snake chick..."

As Riza started putting together pairs, Kouma the hellhound closed his eyes in anticipation. "Not Saotome. Not Saotome. Not Saotome. Not Saotome," he repeated under his breath like a mantra as Riza worked through the first four pairs and then made eye contact with him.

"Eyebrows, you keep mumbling 'Saotome' over and over, so fine, you and Human can pair up," the redhead said, shrugging.

"Son of a BITCH!" the hellhound shouted, slamming a foot into the floor.

Another student chuckled. "Strictly speaking, aren't you the son of a bitch, Mister Hellhound?"

Flames burst around Kouma's hand as he stared murderously at the one who had mocked him, but those flames went out quickly when his wrist was suddenly seized.

"Whoa, cool it Mutt," Ranma said as he held the other boy's wrist firmly. "Don't waste all your energy on him. You're gonna need it if you want to keep up with me."

"Stop calling me 'Mutt'," Kouma growled, slowly turning to face the pigtailed boy.

"Fine, 'Eyebrows' it is, then," Ranma said, shrugging as he adopted Riza's nickname for the hellhound. "Your bushy brows are more obvious than the dog thing, anyway."

Kouma continued growling, but resisted making further violence upon those that surrounded him. Truth be told, if people insisted on mocking him, he much preferred that they mock his looks rather than his species.

"All right, now that you have your partners, I want to see some low-level sparring!" Riza demanded, crossing her arms under her breasts. "You're to get a feel for your partner's combat style, and you're to do it without hurting each other! I don't want any of you morons showing off, you hear?"

Ranma smirked as he gave Kouma some space. "Well, I think we already have a pretty good idea of what we're each capable of, but whatever. You ready?"

The hellhound just growled deep in his throat, irritated that he got stuck with Ranma as a partner. There wasn't much to be done about it though, and Kouma did have an interest in getting stronger, so after taking a few moments to swallow his pride he took up a boxer's stance.

_Bam!_ Before any sparring could begin however, the door to the classroom suddenly burst open, swinging wide and then slamming into the adjacent wall.

The entire fight club stopped to gawk at the new interruption as it stepped heedlessly into the room. It was cloaked from head to toe in rather fine, ornate Chinese robes, obscuring the body and face, but the figure was quite short.

"Ah. So it's true. You are-" _Thud!_

The figure was interrupted as the door swung back away from the wall, causing a body that had been crushed between the two to fall onto the floor, dazed.

Everyone in the room, the cloaked person included, watched in utter confusion as a girl with mussy purple hair got to her feet and then staggered out the exit, all the while holding a large sheet of fabric with a pattern that matched the room's wallpaper.

The cloaked figure turned away from the bizarre but irrelevant sight, and once again faced the students within the classroom. "Ah... where was I?"

"I believe you were about to apologize for interrupting my club's activities, and then go away," Riza said.

"Oh, right," the figure mumbled, bowing, "I'm very sor-wait, that's not it at all!"

Standing up straight once more, the figure promptly pointed toward Ranma. "Hello Saotome. Surprised to see me?"

Ranma frowned. "Maybe. Gimme a sec to place the voice," he mumbled as he rubbed his chin. 'Kinda high pitched, like a kid. A boy? Probably. Hmmm...'

Finally, he nodded. "I'm gonna guess you're either one of the losers back in Nerima under the influence of those nutty age-bending shrooms..." he sighed, "or you're Saffron."

To be honest, none of the members of the fight club were terribly surprised or impressed when the figure finally swept aside the cloak, revealing his body. It was a boy that seemed a deal younger than them that had cold, piercing eyes and a strange hairstyle with his long, parted bangs a bright pink and the rest of his hair charcoal black. He was wearing the school's uniform under the robes, but also had on a strange circlet that seemed to be two pairs of wings stacked on top of what appeared to be a tiny egg.

"Surprised to see me?" the Phoenix king asked, his mouth curling into a sneer.

"Not really, no." Ranma promptly turned back toward Kouma. "So you're partial to boxing, eh? I guess it suits you. You do any-" his question was interrupted as a small fireball streaked by his head to explode on the wall.

"You dare ignore me?" Saffron demanded, enraged. For that matter, most of the rest of the class was ignoring him too, going about their exercises without a bit of interest in the Phoenix king's origins or what he was doing here. Unthinkable!

"Hey! You, the shrimp! Knock off the fireworks!" Riza growled as she stomped up to the front where Saffron was glaring at Ranma and Kouma. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Saffron turned to stare disdainfully at the redhead. "I am Lord Saffron, king of Phoenix Mountain and ruler of its people. Who are you to speak to me, wench?" Kouma growled in his throat at the boy's disrespect, but refrained from saying anything.

Riza's eyebrow twitched. "I'm Riza Wildman, administrator of this classroom and organizer of the members of my club here," she said irritably. "And for the moment, you're not on 'Phoenix Mountain', you're in 'Room 218'. So I don't care if you're a king or whatever; YOU answer to ME, got it short stuff?"

Saffron snorted as he barely managed to stifle a laugh. "Really Saotome, you always seem to find the most troublesome women. Isn't it annoying, being around females that don't know their place?"

Ranma was very proud of his fight against Saffron, even if it had been one of the most harrowing experiences of his life that had nearly cost him his fiancee's life and **had**, in fact, cost him his enrollment in Furinkan. Saffron was a creature unto a god, nearly indestructible and with power immeasurably greater than Ranma's own, and yet with ingenuity and will, he had actually managed to defeat the Chinese king.

It was for this reason that he was of somewhat mixed feelings as he watched said king get smacked off his feet like a bowling pin before being thrown through the nearest wall to fall into a crumpled mess in the hall on the other side.

"Human," Riza said through clenched teeth as she dusted off her hands, "find out what he wants and see if you can't 'convince' him to never come here again."

"Okay, sure," Ranma said, sighing.

"Eyebrows, that'll leave you without a partner until he takes care of that idiot, won't it?" the redhead asked.

Kouma brightened immediately. If Ranma was leaving, then maybe he could join another group. Or better yet, maybe Riza herself would be willing to-

"Why don't you go help Ranma get rid of the jackass, then?" Riza said, not noticing as the hellhound wilted. "Let me know if you need to dispose of any bodies."

"Yes, Miss Wildman," Kouma said despondently, trudging out of the room behind the pigtailed boy.

"Urgh! Guh!" Saffron struggled as his shattered arm regenerated, trying to push the chunks of wall and twisted rebar off of himself.

"So how's it feel to have a girl throw you through a wall?" Ranma asked as he knelt behind the Phoenix king. "It's been so long since I've seen Akane, I've practically forgotten."

"That... That insolent little-" Saffron began to snarl before Ranma suddenly grabbed part of the rebar that was holding him down and snapped it off.

"Let's leave the insolent little ones alone for now," the pigtailed boy deadpanned, "it's drafty enough around here without more holes in the building. So what's up, bird-brain? Why are you here?"

Kouma stood above Ranma, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at the newcomer with eyes that promised hot death if he was uncooperative.

Saffron struggled to stand up, his obviously broken leg shifting back into place even as the two teenagers waited for an answer.

"I suspect I'm here for the same reason you are, Saotome," Saffron said gruffly, staring angrily at the rips and bloody tears in his uniform which would not regenerate like mere flesh. "I assume you too were dragged here against your will after our little... scuffle in China."

Ranma snorted at the idea of that battle being a mere "scuffle". "Nah, I came more or less willingly. Though I did get that spiel about being a 'threat to humanity' or whatever. Now that I think about it, it doesn't surprise me that they were out to get you too."

Kouma, who mostly had no idea what the pair were talking about, gulped slightly at hearing that Ranma and Saffron were considered threats to humanity. 'There's no way this bratty kid and the cocky jerk could be THAT strong... right?'

Ranma frowned. "So, wait, you were brought here against your will? How's that work?"

Saffron snorted. "Tell me Saotome, have you ever heard of the Hell Kings?"

The pigtailed boy shook his head.

"What little I know of them is mostly fable, passed down from my people's ancient lore," Saffron begin somberly as he sat down in the hallway. "I was fortunate enough not to actually MEET one of the dread priests until just a week ago."

"So what are they?" Kouma demanded, quite uninterested in the whole story but wanting to conclude the conversation so that he could go back to his club activities.

"They're a coven of strange and mysterious clerics, or so the stories say," Saffron mumbled. "It's said that they usually work behind the scenes to maintain order and balance in this world, and possess magic powerful enough to dwarf even my own."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Well, seeing how you met one of these chumps, izzat true?"

Saffron's eyes hardened. "It would seem so... although I did not have access to my adult form and my full power - thanks to SOMEONE throwing a murderous tantrum at the time of my ascension - I still held considerable strength and had the might of all of Phoenix Mountain at my fingertips. Still, I was helpless before the man who appeared at Phoenix Mountain to ask what had happened to all the academy brochures they had sent me."

The Phoenix king growled as he stared at his small, untaloned hands. "The Hell King put a seal on me," he explained, pointing to the egg on his circlet, "and said it would only be removed once I had completed my classes at Youkai Academy. The seal permanently fixes my power and my apparent age to what you see before you, and locks this... 'human disguise' in place."

"I was wondering about the lack of wings," Ranma mumbled. "Still, even with that, kinda seems to me that you coulda kept living in Phoenix Mountain. You spent plenty of time in kid form, right?"

Saffron snorted. "I certainly would have chosen that path... but with the seal in place, it would seem that every assassin in China suddenly thinks I am easy pickings. Musk, Amazon, Maoist... there have even been attempts from my own people to slay me! I am here to avoid the killers as much as to finally release my true power."

Ranma blinked. "Whoa, wait, do you still come back to life when killed?"

"WHAT?" Kouma suddenly shouted, his eyes wide. "Resurrection? Are you serious?"

Saffron ignored the ignorant hellhound. "I do. In fact, the only advantage of the seal is that when I am reborn, I am birthed not as a mere infant but rather the pre-pubescent shell you see before you. I am as immortal as ever." He scowled. "Still, the sheer NUMBER of rebirths I've suffered since the sealing is troubling, to say nothing of how unpleasant the actual process is. To top it off, some of the assassins were getting... creative... in their attempts to banish me permanently."

Ranma didn't really understand that, but felt that he was better off not asking for details. "So here you are, huh? That's a tough break."

"Indeed, it has been quite troublesome," Saffron agreed grimly. "Though I must say, I'm extremely pleased to see you, Saotome."

The pigtailed boy blinked, not expecting that at all. Saffron wanted to see him? The man who had beaten and killed him? "What? You wanted to talk to me or something?" Then his eyes hardened. "Or did you wanna have a rematch?"

Saffron laughed bitterly. "I'd hardly think of challenging you again with my current power, Saotome. You have nothing to fear. I'm simply glad to see that you are, in fact, a monster."

Kouma raised an eyebrow as a vein popped up on Ranma's head.

"Well, not so much 'glad' as 'relieved'," Saffron continued, oblivious to Ranma's darkening expression, "the thought that I had actually lost to a **human** was inconceivable! I was so shamed by the humiliation that I almost pined for true death to end my misery!" He sighed as his lips curled into a calm smile. "But to hear that you share the blood of youkai explains everything. I knew there was no way I could have lost to a mere human. I find myself wondering what, exactly, you are, though."

Saffron looked up at Ranma as he made the query, and noted with some confusion that the pigtailed boy was staring down at him with dark, expressionless eyes. "Saotome?"

"So... when you die... you're reborn just like this? No complications?" Ranma deadpanned.

"Uh... that's right," the Phoenix king answered hesitantly. "Why do you ask?"

* * *

"Come on, come on, put your back into it!" Riza growled as she shoved one of her trainees forward. "Attack decisively! You're not fast enough or SMART enough to probe his defenses, so such light attacks are useless!"

Then the redhead turned to point at the pair fighting in the far corner. "Zapper, you have to-"

"EEEEEYAAARGH! GWAH! AUGH! Glrkhlhaaaugh..."

The entire class froze as a sudden scream of agony came from outside their practice room, being perfectly audible thanks to the hole in the wall. After a few seconds, however, the screams weakened and then ceased.

A few seconds after that, Ranma and Kouma finally re-entered the classroom, the latter looking nervous and the former with a considerable amount of blood splattered all over his arms and clothes.

"I got rid of him," Ranma said, his voice emotionless thanks to the Soul of Ice.

"Ah. So, you need to get rid of a body after all?" Riza asked.

"No, he'll get better," the pigtailed boy responded, a tinge of regret in his voice.

"Are you sure?" Kouma asked, his voice quaking slightly. "You ripped out his..."

The hellhound's words died on his tongue as Ranma slowly turned his dead, icy gaze toward him.

"Uh... why don't we start that sparring?" Kouma asked, deciding that he much preferred the arrogant, annoying Ranma to the cold, deadly one.

"Yes," Ranma said as he started cracking his knuckles. "Let's."

* * *

"Ah, yes. This is it after all. The war golem Morticullus," Jadeite said cheerfully as he flipped through an old book.

_CRASH!_

"Constructed in ancient times by the Earth's last remaining goblin tribes, it was to be the last shining symbol of their culture and military might," he continued.

_SLAM! Rrrrrrumble..._

"Surely it would have been, except that the first human wizard that came upon it figured out its simple control runes before the construct could close to melee range."

_Crunch! WHAM!_

Jadeite licked his finger before turning the page. "It's said that after that incident, the golem became a shining symbol of the idiocy and self-destructive nature of the goblins, and was the butt of jokes for centuries after it was buried."

"Would you stop reading and HELP me?" Kurumu screamed as she flew wildly through the massive cavern, sweat dripping from her brow.

Swiping clumsily at her was a twenty-foot tall humanoid suit of armor that moved on its own accord as it tried to crush the succubus as best it could. Its helmet, rather than having eye slits, was a solid piece of spiked metal with a large gemstone set in the middle, resembling an eye.

Jadeite glared up at the bluette in annoyance. "Do calm down. Panicking will serve no purpose."

"Easy for you to say when you're down there READING while this thing tries to kill me!" Kurumu shouted, looking back and forth for somewhere to hide.

The dark general went back to his book. "It says here that the war golem was imprisoned by the wizards that took control of it because they reasoned that any half-decent magic user could probably command the construct and turn it against its masters. What does that tell you?"

"Gah! Now it's throwing things!" Kurumu screamed, landing roughly on the ground as a piece of stone pillar barely flew over her head to smash into the wall behind her.

"Incorrect. Pay closer attention," Jadeite said scornfully. "If this account is true, it should be a simple matter to take control of the golem ourselves. If some half-wit human could do it, surely it should be no challenge for students of your caliber, right?"

Kurumu grit her teeth as she flew away from another hurled boulder. "I only have enchantment magic! And even **I** can't seduce a golem! Sendo, you do it!"

Morticullus was about to charge Kurumu again when a small rock bounced off of its leg.

Immediately registering the impact as an attack and deciding that the origin of the "assault" took priority over the hapless succubus, the war golem turned and fixed its magical eye on a small, unobtrusive looking boy that was glaring up at it from the ground below.

"Hey, why don't you pick on-" Tsukune managed to get out before five tons of iron boot smashed into him from above.

"Tsu-Tsu-Tsukune!" Kurumu gasped, her face paling as she watched the very ground shake from the impact of the golem's stomp.

"What's wrong?" Tsukune asked from below her, causing the succubus to do a double-take in confusion. "Are you all right, Kurumu?"

Morticullus whirled around to see the new Tsukune below its previous target, and promptly broke off the base of a broken pillar before hurling it across the room.

_CRUNCH!_ The pillar was ground to rubble as it impacted the wall, and Tsukune's form vanished utterly before the massive impact.

"Yoo hoo! Mister Goblin Bot! Over here!" Tsukune waved from atop a mound of collapsed debris.

Hiding behind some obscuring rubble, Tsukune waved as Yukari stood behind him, projecting the human boy's image into the illusions that were now driving the war golem into a rage.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up!" Yukari said through clenched teeth. "It's not that hard a spell, but eventually that thing is going to bring down this whole cave on us if we can't stop it!"

"What about what Professor Jadeite said?" Moka asked nervously. "Can't we take control of it somehow?"

"Yes, that should take priority," Jadeite himself said, floating over the collapsed terrain and landing next to Moka. "The control runes should tell you how to control Morticullus. If necessary, the winged girl can act as a decoy again so you won't have to maintain the illusions."

Taking a moment to glare at Jadeite for not having even remembered his club members' names, Yukari stared hard at the glowing green patterns that covered the war golem's chest and shoulders. "I can't read that! It's in Goblin!"

"Of course it's in Goblin. They're the ones who built it," Jadeite scoffed. "You can't read Goblin?"

"No! Nobody reads Goblin! Not even goblins read Goblin anymore! It's a dead language!" Yukari shouted as she went back to focusing on illusory decoys.

Jadeite frowned as he rubbed his chin. "Huh. I had not anticipated this. Back in the academies on Earth during the reign of the Moon Kingdom, most people took primitive tribal dialects to fulfill their foreign language class requirement because they were much easier than learning any useful languages. I suppose such customs might change over the passage of the millennia."

As Tsukune and Moka facepalmed over the professor's stupidity, Kurumu suddenly shouted to them. "Tsukune, look out!"

"Don't worry Kurumu!" Tsukune shouted back, unable to actually see the succubus because of the debris and scattered clouds of dust. "That's not really-"

_CRASH!_ The words died in Tsukune's throat as a massive steel arm broke through the rubble piled high to the side of them, sending bits of stone and masonry flying over their heads.

"Oh. That's what you meant," Tsukune squeaked as Morticullus loomed above them.

"Hmph. Well, this was a failure," Jadeite mumbled as he closed the old book and summoned a portal behind him. "If any of you survive, I'll see you next week," the dark general said, teleporting to safety and closing the magical exit before any of his students could follow.

'So this is how it all ends,' Tsukune thought as the war golem made a fist and drove it straight down toward him, 'squashed by a giant living suit of armor.' His life flashed before his eyes, but Tsukune quickly got bored of watching the mental records of his painfully monotonous life and simply waited for the killing blow to land.

It never did. Tsukune stared blankly at the fist of Morticullus as it hovered just inches from his face, bits of dust and gravel falling from between the battered iron fingers all around him.

"Wh-What? It stopped! Thank goodness!" Moka cried, grabbing Tsukune and trying to pull him away.

"Wait!" the human boy said suddenly. "Back off for a moment!" Moka looked confused and hesitant, but she let go of him and moved away.

Tsukune stared up at the war golem curiously. 'I think I get it. The last people that commanded this thing were human, so it won't hurt humans, huh?' Inwardly, he marveled at how easy he now found it to shrug off being almost crushed to a paste. 'I must be getting used to this school after all.'

"Tsukune? Is it dead, or what?" Kurumu asked, landing on a brazier a ways away from the rest of the group.

"No, I don't think so," Tsukune replied. Then, as he stared up into the gleaming jewel that made up its eye, he got an idea. "Morticullus! Step back!"

The girls' eyes bugged out at the massive construct promptly did as instructed, standing up straight and then taking one step back before stopping.

"You can command that thing?" Yukari shouted in shock. "How? Why?"

"It's... uh... my monster power, that's all!" Tsukune said awkwardly, fishing for an explanation that didn't involve revealing his humanity. He himself was surprised that the giant construct would take orders from literally ANY human that gave them, but judging from Jadeite's earlier history lesson that was precisely the irony of the device.

"What? What kind of monster are you?" Yukari demanded hotly.

Tsukune chuckled nervously. "Sorry, it's against the rules to tell you..."

"What I want to know is why you didn't do that earlier!" Kurumu asked, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Well, actually, I didn't think I could do it at all," Tsukune said honestly, shrugging. "I'm just as surprised as you guys."

"Okay, so... now that we have the golem under control, what are we going to do with it?" Yukari asked, giving Tsukune suspicious glances.

"No WAY can we hand it over to Professor Jadeite," Kurumu snapped angrily. "He actually took off and left us here to fight a gigantic creature we had no hope of defeating!"

"Isn't that exactly what we did to him last time?" Moka asked.

"But he doesn't know that!" Kurumu protested. "Besides, he deserved it! I say we make the golem smash him!"

Tsukune winced. "Even if that worked, it would probably wreck half the school in the process."

Moka shook her head. "Tsukune's right. We should destroy it."

"Destroy it?" Tsukune asked, finding Moka's suggestion as unlikely as Kurumu's. "How are we supposed to do that? Does Morticullus come with a self-destruct button?"

_Ding!_ The teenagers jumped in surprise at the noise that came from the war golem standing next to them, and all of them turned to see an unfamiliar symbol in the middle of the jewel on its face.

_Ding!_ The same sound rang out once again, and the symbol changed, although this one made no more sense to them than the first.

_Ding!_ Another sound, another unrecognizable symbol.

"What's it doing?" Moka asked nervously.

"As long as it doesn't start swinging at us again, who cares?" Kurumu muttered, shrugging.

_Ding!_

Yukari frowned. "It almost seems like... a countdown?"

_Ding!_

* * *

Ranma squinted his eyes as he watched a distant pillar of light erupt from deep within the wasteland beyond the school, ascending to the heavens amidst a cloud of dust and ash.

"Huh. Wonder what that was?" he mumbled to himself as he turned away from the window. He had seen the sudden detonation entirely by chance, being on his way back to the dorms.

Before being interrupted he had been considering Saffron's arrival and what it might mean for his remaining time at Youkai Academy.

His eventual conclusion was that it meant absolutely nothing; aside from their one, Earth-shaking fight that had prompted their enrollment at Youkai Academy, Ranma had nothing to do with the Phoenix king, and with Saffron weakened and sealed he posed little threat anyway.

Still, it rankled him to dismiss Saffron so easily. More than the immortal king himself, there was the matter of the Hell Kings that had sealed him. Would they have visited the Tendo household if Ranma hadn't agreed to enroll at Youkai voluntarily? What was their scheme in all this?

Ostensibly the mysterious priests were upholding some sort of balance and worked for peaceful ends, but Ranma didn't buy that. Someone who could march into Phoenix Mountain, slap Saffron with ancient magic, and then stroll out unscathed had goals beyond making sure Saffron got special classes in not killing people. In Ranma's experience, nobody with that kind of power was ever benign, and even if they were only enforcing their will upon others in the interests of humanity, there were problems with that, too.

'Well, if they're really all that important and powerful, it's probably just a matter of time before they kidnap Akane for some reason. I guess I'll meet them then.' He didn't know why ancient priests of order might possibly want his fiancee, but that was just the way these things worked.

His musings halted as he noticed Kana ahead of him in the hall, walking in the same direction he was.

"Kana! Yo! Wait up!" He shouted out, startling the girl slightly as she turned around to see him.

Ranma quickly made up the distance, weaving around the few other students that were wandering the halls at this time of day. "Hey, how ya doing? It's been a while since we last got the chance to talk!"

Kana flushed and lowered her head, her eyes nervously flitting about at the other people around them. "..."

"Yeah, I guess I'm with Tsukune and his girls pretty often, but that doesn't mean you can't hang out with us, you know," Ranma insisted, leaning in closer so that he could hear the girl. "They've forgiven you for that hypnosis thing, you know. They won't cause any trouble."

As Kana began walking side-by-side with Ranma, she thought over his words and frowned. "..."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, pretty much. Moka and Kurumu are all over him, even if Moka's kind of coy about it. Why?"

Kana's expression was... not quite disgusted, but she definitely found the prospect unpleasant. "..."

"What do they see in him?" Ranma repeated, straightening. "Well, I guess you'd have to ask them, but Tsukune's got plenty of good points," the pigtailed boy insisted, wagging a finger. "He's a really nice guy, for one. And besides that, he's... well, he's really good at sympathizing with people, and... uh... he's polite..." Ranma frowned. "Okay, so he's mostly just got the nice guy thing going for him, but that counts for a lot. Especially around here, what with half the student body out to eat the other half."

Kana nodded reluctantly, having to agree. She still couldn't really fathom how two girls as beautiful as Moka and Kurumu ended up latching onto the least remarkable specimen in the freshman class though, especially when Ranma was around. Not that she was complaining, of course. "..."

"Oh, right! I do owe you a favor, don't I?" Ranma asked, nodding. "What can I-"

His head snapped up suddenly as his eyes narrowed. "Actually, I think I'll need a rain check on that. Somebody wants to play."

Ranma stopped in his tracks as he turned his head to the side, catching sight of his target leaning casually against the opposite side of the hall, pumping a barbel.

The man giving off waves of aggressive energy grinned, staring down at the pigtailed boy. "Ah, you're a sharp one, aren't you? You caught me right away. Heh!"

As Ranma sized up the fellow, his expression darkened somewhat. "I'm actually feeling pretty stupid for not noticing you earlier," he mumbled, "you're frickin' huge."

The young man leaning against the wall was over six feet tall with a massive frame bulging with muscle, mostly concentrated in his arms and shoulders. His bleached blond hair was slicked back over his head, and an enormous chin dominated his facial features.

"So spit it out; what terrible crime have I committed this time?" Ranma asked, warding Kana back as he approached the giant. "Or are you not with those Enforcer chumps? I don't remember seeing you before."

"Naw, I'm not an Enforcer. Name's Rikishi, but you can call me Chopper. Wrestling team."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "So what's your beef with me?"

"'Aint got no beef," Chopper said, his lips stretching into a wide grin as he crossed the width of the hall toward the pigtailed boy. "I just heard some stories, is all."

He let the barbel fall from his slack fingers onto the floor. Crack! It promptly embedded itself into the tile, and Kana gulped loudly as she backed up against the wall behind Ranma.

"You see, rumor has it that there's this hotshot freshman that's been causing a ruckus amongst the rabble, so to speak," Chopper said, bracing one arm against a row of lockers next to Ranma as he leered down at the pigtailed boy. "Gettin' in all kinds of fights with the low-level troublemakers and throwing his weight around."

"What's your point?" Ranma asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't mean to rush you, but I was kind of heading somewhere, and you're holding me up."

A chuckle emerged from deep within Chopper's throat. "Well, that kind of thing normally doesn't amount to much around here, but then I heard that this same kid was apparently the new star of Wildman's fight club. And, well, that's a pedigree worth lookin' at."

"I'm still waiting for that point," Ranma murmured.

"Here's your point," Chopper said amiably before calmly swinging his arms toward the lockers in a lazy backhand.

_CRUNCH!_ The steel containers crumpled like tin foil under Chopper's knuckles, and the enormous blond man grinned as the sound of twisting metal filled the hall.

"This is about you and me, Saotome. Rumors are gettin' outta hand, sayin' you're indestructible and nonsense like that," Chopper said, licking his lips in anticipation of violence. "So it looks like it's up to me to put you in your place. You tell me when and where, and-"

At that point in Chopper's tirade, one of the damaged locker doors popped off of its hinges and collapsed onto the floor, followed a moment later by a purple haired girl who tumbled out into the hall amongst a pile of books and scrap paper.

Chopper blinked as the unfamiliar student crawled between his legs and then dashed away behind him without saying a word.

"The hell? Who was that?" he mumbled.

"Oh, that's just... what was her name? Mizore, I think it was. She's been stalking me all day," Ranma explained, shrugging as if it was of no real consequence. "Anyway, if you're just looking for a fight to prove how good you are, I accept," he said, smiling. "I'd take you on now, but me and Kana were just on our way-"

Ranma stopped talking as Kana suddenly tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned to look, he noticed that her one visible eye was cold and serious. "Eh? What's wrong?"

"..." the siren whispered.

"Oh. Uh... okay, I guess I'll see you later, then," Ranma mumbled as Kana walked quickly down the hall, passing by Chopper without giving the wrestler so much as a glance.

"Heh. Sorry to interrupt your little date," Chopper sneered as he started cracking his knuckles, "but really, guys like us should be training, not skirt chasing."

Ranma caught himself smiling a bit, having appreciated the sentiment. "You got that right. So where is this happening?"

"Roof?" Chopper asked, jabbing a thumb behind him.

Ranma smiled as he gestured toward the stairs. "Ladies first."

* * *

Mizore Shirayuki panted heavily as she leaned against the door to the gym, her hand over her chest and her breath coming out in heavy, misty clouds of chilled air.

Not so much from having been caught sneaking around Ranma again as much as from being trapped in a locker that had almost imploded with her inside.

'Ranma is surrounded by many... violent people,' she decided after giving it some thought. She had heard that the pigtailed boy was a fighter and had taken to the unruly halls of Youkai Academy with gusto, but she didn't imagine it would be so easy to get caught in the line of fire.

After catching her breath she stood up and considered where to pick up the trail next. 'Maybe I should wait at his dorm? If I remember right, he rooms with that other one... Ao-something... maybe I can-'

"Hello there," a voice boomed from behind Mizore, causing her to jump in fright.

After whirling about in a panic, she was thoroughly surprised to see a girl just a bit shorter than she was standing in the middle of the hall, hands crossed over her chest and a bemused expression on her face. Her long hair was purple, if a much darker shade than Mizore's own, and crested her head in such a way as to hide one half of her face before spilling over her shoulder.

"Huh? Who are you?" Mizore said suspiciously, her eyes narrowing. 'Did that voice come from her? It sounded so deep and powerful...'

Kana snorted as she ran a hand through her hair, fixing Mizore with a disdainful stare. "There's no need for introductions. I intend to make this short and to the point: stop following Ranma around. All right?"

"Hmmm?" Mizore's eyes gleamed even as the local temperature dropped several degrees. "And who do you think you are... telling me what to do?" she asked, slouching slightly as she glared down at Kana.

The siren girl stood her ground, though she was wary of the sudden fall in temperature; somehow she doubted it was just a reflection of the mood. "I'm not going to try and stake Ranma as mine or anything of the sort," Kana said, "but following him around like a creep is going to get you hurt, understand?"

"And who's going to hurt me?" Mizore mumbled, taking a step forward. The moment she put her foot down a thick layer of ice covered the floor around her shoe before rapidly spreading outward, the frost quickly creeping toward Kana's own feet.

The siren was unimpressed. "KNOCK IT OFF."

_Crack!_ The ice patch promptly shattered, and Mizore took a step back as she felt an uncomfortable tremor run through her body.

Kana glared harshly at the taller girl through her visible eye, and then turned around sharply. "I'm done here. You can ignore my warning if you want, but don't expect to get away with it."

"Why in such a hurry?" Mizore said, her voice husky as clouds of mist seeped out from between her lips with every breath, "you show up out of nowhere to threaten me, and then just want to walk away?"

Kana stopped as her eyes narrowed. "I'm letting you off EASY, weirdo. I didn't come here to fight. This time."

"Well, what if I told you I have no plans to leave Ranma alone?" Mizore said, rolling her lollipop around in her mouth as she gazed expressionlessly at the shorter girl. "What are you going to do about it?"

Kana's expression became more heated as the tension in the air rose, presenting a stark contrast to Mizore's cold, lazy expression. The only thing that kept her from taking up the invitation to attack was that she didn't know Mizore's true form; obviously the taller girl was some sort of ice elemental or frost creature, and Kana could shatter ice crystals easily. On the other hand, they were inside and within arms' reach of each other, and if Mizore was any more capable a fighter than she was that would put the siren at a fatal disadvantage.

Still, the thought of wiping that dead expression off the other girl's face with a sonic blast was SO tempting...

_Crash!_ Both girls flinched from a sudden loud noise originating from far above, and both felt much of the tension melt away as the walls shook slightly.

"Hmph. Looks like Ranma and that brute are at it already," Kana said, turning around again and walking away. "I've said my piece. Good night."

Mizore snorted at the siren's back, though inwardly she was rather relieved things hadn't come to blows; she didn't fancy herself a fighter, even if she was a fairly powerful monster. "Whatever. I'm sure I'll see you around, shorty."

* * *

Just as Mizore and Kana were engaged in simmering conflict below, Ranma had his own conflict at the top of the school. And although his was notable for being far less heated and emotional, there was no small irony in the level of violence involved.

_Crunch!_ Concrete buckled underfoot as Chopper slammed a leg down, narrowly missing the pigtailed boy as Ranma darted through the larger boy's defenses.

"C'mon, you gotta be faster than that!" Ranma taunted as he bounced away behind the wrestler, "I thought you were gonna teach me a lesson! Unless the lesson is 'everyone here is just as slow and weak as that loser Saizo'."

Chopper reacted quite warmly to the jibes, his lips curling into a smile as he shifted around. "Just warmin' up, chump! You 'aint seen nothing yet!"

Ranma darted in while his opponent was taunting, and was fairly surprised when Chopper managed to block his first few jabs before being struck by a kick that scythed around his defenses. A retaliatory haymaker sent Ranma bouncing backward, skidding to a stop as his foe continued to advance.

'Now that I look at him, he actually has a decent guard,' Ranma noted as he observed the wrestler carefully. 'He's not just depending on his natural power to see him through; this guy actually knows how to fight.'

Ranma ducked under a left hook, and then launched his own series of punches that all ended up slamming into Chopper's iron-hard forearm before the wrestler brought his other arm down onto toward the agile human's head.

_Crunch!_ The surface of the roof cracked badly under the power of Chopper's attack, although Ranma himself once again hopped back to avoid the impact completely.

"Tch! Hard to hit, 'aintcha? Just like a damn gnat," the wrestler complained as he shook his hand to get rid of the bits of cement sticking to his knuckles.

"Okay, so what now?" Ranma asked, standing just out of Chopper's reach with his hands in his pockets. "Like things are now, I'm gonna win. You haven't hit me once, and I've pretty much been playing with ya."

Chopper chuckled deeply, the sound degenerating into a rumbling growl deep in his throat. "All right, all right, I getcha," the wrestler said as his body started expanding. "Enough playing around... let's do this for real."

Chopper's skin hardened and took on a tough, rock-like texture even as his body continued growing, and spines began poking out of his head and the back of his neck as his teeth started lengthening into sharpened tusks.

Within seconds, Chopper's body was about twice its previous size with arms roughly the size of a man by themselves and fists like wrecking balls.

"You ready for this, Saotome?" Chopper snarled, his voice a constant, rumbling growl. "Bring it on!"

With an ecstatic roar, the troll swung forward.

* * *

"Hi everyone! It's time again for the monster encyclopedia segment!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly. "Today the topic is, of course, trolls!"

The homeroom teacher turned to the blackboard, pointing to a drawing of Europe. "Native to northern Europe, trolls are a tough, headstrong, tribal species. Most of them can be found in Norway, and it's said that ancient viking warriors would sometimes hunt them for sport in order to test their martial prowess."

Shizuka moved on to a silhouette of Chopper that had arrows pointing to the hands that connected to the word "pain". "Trolls are unsophisticated but brutal warrior giants that love to fight. They don't have much in the way of culture or intellect, but there are few better monsters for wading into a battlefield. The stupidity of trolls is a very common stereotype, and although we here at Youkai Academy frown upon such prejudice, that stereotype exists for a reason. In fact, out of his entire tribe, Chopper was the only one to pass the entrance exam, which very nearly makes him a genius by trollish standards."

The next section of the blackboard had a sophisticated drawing of an organic cell structure, and was done in a crisp, precise drawing style that made it clear that it was not produced by Miss Nekonome. "The trolls' other claim to fame - and a much more positive one - is their ability to regenerate. A troll can heal a wound in a matter of moments, even if the wound causes critical damage to major organs. Lost limbs regrow and reach full strength within a day, and even a troll that has been, for all intents and purposes, killed will usually recover, sometimes before their opponent has even caught their breath. There are even records of trolls being hacked to pieces, only to regrow entire bodies from the stump of their necks!"

Shizuka shook her head. "If one wants to hurt a troll permanently, or at least permanently enough to win, one has to either inflict a truly massive amount of damage at once, or keep the wound from healing naturally. Fire and acid are the most popular methods, but ice and poison will also impede the growth of healthy flesh. Alternatively, you can just stick a weapon in them and leave it in to keep the wound from closing, although being unarmed against an angry troll is probably a worse situation. So, as usual, fire is the answer. Bye-bye!"

* * *

"Whoa!" Ranma jumped back as Chopper's claws grazed the surface of the roof, tearing through the cement and leaving a series of shallow scars behind.

The troll immediately followed up with a straight punch with his other arm, and even as it passed by harmlessly Ranma was impressed by the air pressure surrounding it from the sheer force behind his fist.

"Still too slow!" Ranma shouted as he leapt past Chopper's guard, slamming a foot into the troll's chin before rearing his arms back. "Kachuu tenshin amaguriken!" the martial artist shouted, his arms becoming a blur as he hammered hundreds of punches into Choppers torso.

The massive monster staggered backward from the hail of attacks, and Ranma grinned as he hopped backward before a clumsy punch could tag him.

That grin faded somewhat as he watched the troll catch his breath, and it vanished outright as he watched the numerous bruises shrink and the hammered flesh rise back to its previous healthy state.

"Hm, not too shabby," Chopper admitted, mildly impressed that he hadn't managed to even touch the pigtailed boy yet, "but you can't take me down with that much power. Don't tell me all you're good at is running away..."

"It is kind of what my school of martial arts specializes in," Ranma admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, that and mid-air combat. But you don't look like much of a jumper to me."

"Too bad for you," Chopper said curtly before throwing a wide backhand at the martial artist. Ranma hopped back in time to avoid that blow, but even then was nearly knocked off his feet by the rush of air following the troll's attack.

'Okay, so his body's too tough for me to beat into submission. Fine. Let's try attack strategy number two: aim for the head.'

Ranma promptly launched himself into a jump kick, and Chopper managed to shield his face with an arm to block the attack.

Using the troll's arm as a springboard, Ranma launched himself up even further into the air, positioning himself strategically as he reached the apex of his jump.

Chopper, trying to keep a bead on his opponent as best he could, raised his head to look, but then promptly shut his eyes from the glare of the sun that briefly silhouetted Ranma's form.

As gravity finally regained control of the defiant martial artist, Ranma began to spin around in the air, holding his arms out as his revolutions became faster and faster until he resembled a giant red and black top.

_KRAKOOM!_ Due to being briefly blinded, Chopper didn't see the attack coming until Ranma's foot slammed into him like a meteor, striking his forehead with enough force to knock him off his feet before drilling his head directly into the surface of the roof. Much of that surface buckled under the impact and the tremorous force that followed it, surrounding the troll's spasming body with a web of deep cracks.

Ranma promptly lost his balance as he stopped spinning around, being too dizzy to keep himself falling flat on his face right next to Chopper.

"Whoa... that... that was kinda fun," Ranma admitted, his head spinning. "Kinda hard on the legs, though."

Staggering to his feet, the pigtailed boy shook his head to clear it, and then turned toward Chopper's prone, unmoving body.

"Well, you were pretty tough, but I was better," Ranma said solemnly, dusting off his hands.

His mock respect faded as Chopper's hand suddenly rose up and wrapped tightly around his legs, immobilizing him.

"This... is not going according to plan," Ranma noted warily as Chopper slowly pushed himself out of the cement crater with his free hand.

The troll's face had been mangled, smashed, and bloodied by the ferocious attack, and Ranma watched in grim fascination as bones shifted back into their proper places, swollen flesh receded, and patches of dried blood broke away like bits of errant dirt.

"That's just **unfair**," Ranma noted as the pressure around his lower torso increased considerably.

"Now..." Chopper mumbled, his fully regenerated face stretching into a satisfied smile, "I gotcha."

"Meep." Ranma whimpered slightly as the troll lifted him up into the air, and he grit his teeth against the pain as he was slammed into the surface of the roof hard enough to leave a fresh crater next to the larger one he had made with Chopper's body.

"Upsy-daisy!" the troll cheered as he flung the stunned pigtailed boy into the air high above him.

Then, after giving his meaty knuckles a slobbery kiss, he wound back his arm as Ranma came plummeting back down to the roof.

_WHAM!_ Ranma's dazed body was hit dead-on by the troll's massive fist, sending the pigtailed boy flying across the length of the roof. _CRASH!_

First the building's air conditioning unit was demolished as Ranma's body tore through it, shearing the flimsy construct in two and sending the shattered remains flying to the side. He then bounced once onto the surface of the roof, kicking up a burst of broken cement from the brief impact, before slamming into and through the steel fence that encircled the rooftop.

"Haw haw haw!" Chopper guffawed loudly, his voice receding into the distance as Ranma plummeted helplessly to the ground.

* * *

Silence reigned as Tsukune, Moka, Kurumu and Yukari trudged back to Youkai Academy from their exploration club "activity". That which needed to be said had been said. That which did not need to be said nobody wished to hear.

The ultimate results of the expedition were quite obvious, judging by the disarray of its members. All were badly scorched and thickly covered with dirt and dust.

Their uniforms were badly damaged, Kurumu's to the point of indecency; the few strips of skirt that remained were hardly enough to conceal her panties, but it was obviously the upper portion of her outfit that had suffered the most, judging by how she was hugging her arms over her chest to avoid exposing all.

Tsukune certainly would have offered her a shirt or coat if his own had been up to the task; all that remained of his school jacket was the collar, and very little of his shirt remained past his shoulders.

Yukari and Moka had gotten off easier, as Yukari had managed to use her magic to form a barrier from the assorted rubble - naturally she had elected to protect herself and Moka rather than stretch herself trying to save everyone - but both were still in poor shape, and definitely had no clothes of their own to spare.

"We're almost to the campus, guys," Tsukune said, his breath heavy. "Kurumu, uh... do you want me to, like, bring you back some clothes or something?"

"Thanks, but it's fine," the succubus muttered, glancing around irritably at the dry, leafless trees that made up the forest surrounding Youkai Academy. "It's times like these when I think that this place could use some real greenery. A bunch of leaves would be handy right now."

She shook her head as her wings sprouted. "Whatever. I'll just fly back to my room. I want to wake up and start pretending the last hour was just a bad dream as soon as poss-"

_Wham!_ Just as the succubus was starting to lift off the ground a red and black blur slammed into her like a missile, sending the sultry teenager plowing into the dirt as the other exploration club members stared in shock.

"K-Kurumu! Kurumu, are you all right?" Tsukune cried, rushing up to the pair of twitching bodies.

After a few moments he recognized the makeshift projectile as well, and his eyes bugged out even further. "Ranma? What happened to you? Speak to me!"

"Wh-Where did he COME from?" Moka asked, aghast at the suddenly impact. Yukari frowned as her eyes turned toward the nearest school building.

Kurumu, for her part, groaned painfully as she tried to get up, only realizing belatedly that there was something fairly heavy on top of her. "What the... Ranma? Izzat you?" the succubus slurred as she fought to remain conscious.

"So... much... pain..." Ranma mumbled weakly, his entire body throbbing, but functional. Thanks in no small part to Kurumu breaking his fall, no doubt. He even had the dubious fortune of landing his face right between her breasts, giving that region a great deal of extra padding.

Kurumu growled in frustration and she sat up, shoving the martial artist off of her. "All right, NOW what the hell is going on?"

Ranma grunted as he fought against the vertigo of his sudden descent combined with the agony resulting from the heavy impacts. "Personal fight... don't worry, I've got this..."

"Ranma, you need medical attention!" Tsukune shouted, rushing to help his roommate up off the ground.

"Hey, what am I, chopped liver?" Kurumu snapped from where she herself was pulling herself up.

Ranma wobbled slightly, as he leaned against Tsukune. "Yeah... medical attention. I'll get right on that... right after I beat this guy up."

Moka raised an eyebrow. "What guy?"

_Thwoom!_ The vampiress was suddenly forced to hold down her skirt as a shock wave came from behind her, no doubt originating from the gigantic troll that had just dropped four stories onto the ground.

"Oh," Moka squeaked, turning to look up at the muscle-bound creature. "Him."

"Yo. Don't mean to be rude," Chopper said as he stared down at the pink-haired girl, "but you're in my way. MOVE."

As the vampiress rapidly did as she was told, Kurumu clicked her tongue. "SO useless..."

Chopper promptly started forward, although he halted when Tsukune suddenly stood in front of him, holding his arms out.

"Stop it! This fight is over!" the human declared boldly, glaring up at the hulking troll.

Ranma blinked. "What? Whoa, wait! If this fight is over, that means I lose! That 'aint happening!"

Chopper chuckled darkly. "I dunno, buddy. The shrimp might be right. You don't look so hot. I won't hold it against ya if you wanna give up and try again later. Just means I'm better'n you, is all."

Tsukune whimpered as he immediately saw Ranma's aura emerge. "Ranma, please, be reasonable!"

"Now isn't the time for reason! I have a fight to win!" Ranma declared, ducking around Tsukune and darting for Chopper.

The troll obviously hadn't expected Ranma to still be so mobile after taking his earlier attack, and was caught completely off guard as Ranma smashed a knee into his chin and then used his head as a springboard to jump up behind him.

"Mouka takabisha!" Ranma shouted, blasting chopper in the back with a sphere of confidence-powered ki and sending the wrestler to his knees.

As Ranma landed, however, Chopper was already standing back up and cracking his neck, having shrugged off the assault.

"Huh, so you got energy blasts, too. Neat trick," Chopper mumbled. "They don't sting for long, though."

'This is ridiculous! How can I cause enough damage to knock this guy out?' Ranma thought. He could try a sustained assault, but he had no reason to believe that would fare any better, and it would leave him open to being grabbed again. The pigtailed boy had no illusions of staying on his feet if he fell into the wrestler's clutches once more.

"Senpai! Use fire! It will stop his body from regenerating!" Yukari shouted out suddenly, attracting the attention of both combatants.

"What? Fire?" Ranma asked in confusion.

"Tch!" Chopper clicked his tongue.

"Fire! Weren't you paying attention during the monster encyclopedia segment?" the young witch demanded.

"... The what?" Ranma asked, shaking his head. "No, wait, forget that, how am I supposed to use fire? I don't have an attack like that!"

Yukari blinked. "Really? Aren't you a devil?"

"I'M A HUMAN, DAMN IT!" Ranma shouted back at his young admirer.

Chopper snorted. "Yeah, sure. It's fine by me to obey school rules, but you're not gonna get away with taking me so lightly."

"I'm not taking you lightly! I'm not a monster!" Ranma shouted, stomping his foot on the ground. "I swear to God, I'll break your legs and-"

Suddenly, his eyes widened. 'Wait, that's it!'

Chopper shrugged and lurched forward. "Break 'em if you want. They'll be good as new before dinner. But seriously buddy, you put up a pretty good fight. It was fun, but now it's time for you to sleep for a while."

'Gotta get this just right,' Ranma thought, focusing as Chopper reared back his right arm while guarding with his left.

Just like before, Ranma slipped around the troll's massive punch and moved into his guard. Rather than launching an attack, however, he instead grabbed Chopper's blocking arm and then leapt up, pulling the hand with him as he landed on the troll's shoulder.

'And one, and two, and PULL!' Bracing himself against his foe's neck, Ranma wrenched Chopper's arm up while twisting at the same moment, and nearly everyone present winced at the sickening crack that resulted.

Dropping the limp appendage, Ranma barely managed to push off of Chopper's back before his other hand reached for him, almost catching the pigtailed boy's leg.

'Okay, that's one down,' Ranma thought, his heart pounding as he noted how close he had been to getting grabbed again.

"Wait! Stop! Time out!" Tsukune suddenly shouted, causing both fighters to freeze.

"What now? I'm winning!" Ranma complained as he turned to face his roommate.

"It's not that, it's just," Tsukune cleared his throat and then held out his hand. "Can Kurumu borrow your shirt?"

Ranma blinked, and then glanced over at the succubus to confirm that, yes, she was in fact completely topless.

"Don't know how I missed that," the pigtailed boy mumbled as he stripped off the red Chinese shirt and tossed it to the smaller human. "Here ya go."

"Thank you!" Kurumu cried gratefully as Tsukune handed her the garment. Really, she probably should have just gone back to her room by now, but found the fight far more interesting than her modesty.

Ranma patted down his undershirt before turning back to Chopper, and was quite satisfied to see the troll casting annoyed and fearful glances as his limp left arm. "Something wrong, Chopper?"

The wrestler snorted. "You're only makin' this harder on yourself, Saotome. If you'd stop bouncing around like a damn flea, then we could make this nice and quick."

The pigtailed boy smirked. "Oh, don't worry. This won't take much longer."

In response, Chopper went on the offensive once more, his left arm swinging uselessly about behind his body as he jabbed at his foe.

Ranma was amused to see that the troll was now using small, measured attacks now, rather than the full-power, wall-shattering punches he had been throwing since the beginning. 'I do need a bigger opening, though. Let's try this.'

Sliding across the ground to one side, Ranma suddenly stumbled, his defense opening.

"Gotcha!" Chopper snarled, once again fully extending himself as attacked at full power.

Ranma's eyes gleamed as his opponent fell for the feint, and the pigtailed boy jumped over the haymaker before grabbing onto the wrestler's elbow.

"And that makes TWO!" Ranma shouted, lashing backward with a kick to Chopper's shoulder while twisting his arm at the same time. Another painful cracking noise followed, and Ranma hopped off of the disabled limb to land in a crouch.

"Phew! That was rough, but it's over. I win," Ranma said, planting his fists on his hips as Chopper stared at him dumbly.

"What? The hell you did! I just..." he growled as his arms swung limply at his sides. "Hey! How come they 'aint regenerating? What did you do?"

"Yeah, I figured breaking bones wouldn't stop you for long, so I did the next best thing," Ranma explained, crossing his arms over his chest, "I dislocated your shoulders. Dislocated bones don't heal naturally like a fracture does."

The trolls eyes were wide as he gaped. "But... I... I can't..."

"A wrestler without the use of his arms can't fight. I win," Ranma said seriously. "Now you should probably see Miss Madaraki. She can fix up something like a dislocation easily."

"Guh!" Chopper grimaced as he stepped back. "Oi, don't think this is over, Saotome! When round two starts, you won't get off so easy!"

Ranma chuckled happily. "I'll be waiting, Chopper! Any time, any place!"

"Yahoo!" Yukari cheered suddenly, startling Moka, who was right next to her. "Senpai won! I knew he could do it!"

"Of course I won," Ranma said haughtily as he watched Chopper stagger off toward the school building, "Ranma Saotome never loses."

"So what was that all about, anyway?" Moka asked, looking worried. "Why were you two fighting?"

Ranma gave her an odd look. "Why? Because we felt like it."

"What?" the vampiress asked, not comprehending.

"Well, technically I guess HE felt like it, and I didn't have anything better to do," the pigtailed boy corrected. "But we didn't really have a reason."

"That's... That's barbaric!" Moka complained, causing Kurumu to roll her eyes.

Ranma shrugged. "I guess. It's nice to fight every once in a while without worrying about getting shipped off to China or one of my friends being killed, though." Then he frowned. "By the way, could someone help me get back to my room? I guess the adrenaline wore off or something, 'cause I can't move my legs any more."

Naturally Tsukune was up to the task, and he took one of the older boy's arms over his shoulders before waving to the girls. "Thanks for your help today! I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Good night," came the chorus of replies, each one varying considerably in enthusiasm as the group finally parted ways.

Ranma and Tsukune, who lagged behind Moka and Kurumu (who was flying) as they headed toward their dorm building, made their way in silence for a fairly long time before Ranma finally spoke.

"By the way... uh... I don't wanna get all mushy or anything, but thanks a lot for helping me out when I'm injured," the pigtailed boy said awkwardly. "There was that time the other day when I was cursed, too. I appreciate it."

"Well, of course! You're helping me out all the time!" Tsukune said, smiling. "Besides, we're friends, aren't we?"

"Heh. Yeah, I guess so," Ranma said, marveling at the simple concept. He had experienced all sorts of trouble and frustrations while at Youkai Academy, but one thing he could get used to was being surrounded by people who weren't constantly out to take advantage of him. He'd be the first to complain that most monsters were short-sighted idiots, but he found a refreshing honesty in their simple, straight-forward barbarism. Besides that, Ranma wasn't sure if he had every had a friend so plainly benevolent as Tsukune; the people he considered friends before coming to Youkai Academy had mostly been limited to Ryoga, Ukyou, and Akane, and putting aside that one of the three ostensibly sought to kill him, his relationship with any of them was the farthest thing from stable.

It was about at this point that Ranma glanced down at the younger boy holding him up and noted, with some alarm, that Tsukune only looked slightly less injured that he did. "So what happened to you guys, anyway?"

"Ancient ruins. Giant golem. Explosion," Tsukune listed succinctly.

"Dang. Hate it when that happens," Ranma said, nodding solemnly. "Jadeite abandon you again?"

"I'd say it's been a tough week for everyone," Tsukune deadpanned.

* * *

Within the school building, in the uppermost levels of the complex, a waiting room sat empty outside the offices of the Enforcers. The room was excellently furnished and decorated, with fine plush chairs, a well-stocked water cooler, and several posters that boasted pictures of a sadistic-looking man with long white hair along such motivational statements as "No justice without bloodshed" and "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary security get to live," with the second quote being incorrectly attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

The closest thing to a living creature that occupied the room was a grainy stone statue that stooped over a waiting table stocked with numerous pristine magazines, its great, bat-like wings folded tightly behind it.

It was no coincidence that there were no students waiting to offer complaints and submit investigations to the Enforcers, and it was certainly not due to there being complete, uninterrupted peace among the students of Youkai Academy. One of the first things freshmen learned upon entering the school was that the strong regularly preyed upon the weak, as was natural among most monster societies, and there was nothing to be done but avoid attention or try to fight back. However, once the freshmen learned that there was actually a group dedicated to the enforcement of peace and order on campus, the next lesson (after they recovered from the incredulous shock) was invariably to avoid ever having contact with that group, ever, even if one had a completely legitimate problem for which they sought redress.

Of course there were those that decided to try anyway, going to the Enforcers and pleading their cases either because they still had a few sparks of naive hope or because they simply had no other options. Most promptly had their innocent hopes crushed, although there were an unlucky few that suddenly found themselves arrested for various outrageous crimes (mostly involving directing anger at the Enforcers' utter uselessness). This cemented the Enforcers' reputations as individuals whom one never approached for help, and as a consequence freed up their schedules enormously.

So it was only after completing her fifty-second game of Internet Checkers that Keito finally emerged from her office to peek into the waiting room.

"Tch! You're still here," she said irritably as she fixed her eyes on the statue, which itself began trembling.

_Crack! Crunch!_ Pebbles and flakes of rock rained onto the floor as Haruo broke out of his stone form, and the gargoyle glared briefly at Keito before stretching.

"FINALLY. You had me waiting so long I fell asleep!" the junior enforcer growled before his form began to shrink, taking on the human disguise that was required of all students.

"I was waiting for you to leave," Keito said unapologetically. "But since you've proven more stubborn than I expected, I suppose I'll hear you out for a little bit." She turned around and headed back into her office, beckoning with her finger. "Come."

Haruo winced, and hesitantly followed. He, like most of the Enforcers, absolutely hated being in Keito's office, regardless of how he felt about Keito herself. It had the unmistakable trappings of a predator's lair, and Keito herself was creepy enough to exacerbate the tension horribly.

Nonetheless, he steeled himself and stepped through the door, his eyes scanning from one end of the room to the other. Great, sweeping cobwebs stretched all over the interior, running into and wrapping around each other in ways that made it hard to tell if a given space was clear, obstructed, or subject to a few stray strands that would collapse a section of webbing around an unwary visitor. Funnel webs hung from the ceiling in support of heavy web cocoons wrapped around... well, Haruo had no idea what was in the disgusting things, but the way they glistened suggested that the webbing was wet and relatively fresh, and the way they twitched every once in a while suggested...

Haruo shuddered as Keito walked up behind her desk, seeming to move through the folds of webbing as if they weren't even there. She then took a seat upon a particularly thick web that had been inclined at an angle perfect for sitting, and then crossed her arms under her breasts.

"All right, spit it out. What can big sis do for you today?" Keito asked, her tone turning playful now that they were on her turf.

"I want to know why nobody's said anything about my earlier proposal," Haruo said, trying to keep his voice firm in the face of the dread that threatened to overwhelm him.

"Ah, you mean that pointless rant about hunting down Saotome and destroying him?" Keito asked, raising an eyebrow. "What of it?"

Haruo's teeth clenched. "'What of it'? I made it very clear that Saotome is a direct threat to the authority and reputation of the Enforcers! When are we going to move out to finish him?"

Keito snorted. "When Kuyo decides that he gives a damn," she said bluntly, invoking the name of the Head Enforcer. "Until Saotome catches Kuyo's attention, nobody's going to pretend that they care about your little grudge."

"Well, what does it take to get Kuyo's attention, then?" Haruo demanded, slamming his hands down onto Keito's desk. "This little bastard has already attacked me twice, and DISMEMBERED one of the faculty!"

"Even WE aren't going to try and tell someone not to hurt Professor Richard," Keito deadpanned. "The Enforcers will gladly support anyone's decision to cripple him, even if in violation of school rules."

"Not the point!" Haruo shouted. "Saotome's actions show a blatant and violent disregard for our authority! Are you really going to let him get away with defying us like that?" He tried to draw himself back, but then realized with some annoyance and a bit of fear that his hands were tangled in the webbing that covered Keito's desk, sticking them to the surface.

Keito rolled her eyes as she leaned back. "From what I can tell, this isn't about Saotome defying the Enforcers, it's about Saotome defying YOU."

"It's the same thing!" Haruo insisted, tugging at his arms in frustration to loosen the sticky threads wrapped around his fingers. "If he'll stand against me, what's to stop him from defying you? Or even Kuyo himself, for that matter? We have to stand together!"

Keito was quite amused at seeing her visitor struggle against her web, but kept her voice apathetic. "You know as well as I do that the Enforcers' solidarity only extends as far as Kuyo's power does. And on that note, I'd like to remind you that when you first started complaining I DID help you, only for you to completely waste my time."

Haruo gulped as he finally disentangled his hands. "I'm sorry! I still don't know how I got Saotome's room wrong! But this is serious! Why won't anybody take action?"

Keito groaned as she rubbed his head. "You imbecile... do I really need to spell it out for you?" Upon seeing Haruo's confused expression, she continued. "Tell me, if you think Saotome needs to be removed, why don't you do it yourself?"

"I already tried that!" Haruo complained heatedly. "I almost got the bastard, too! But... well..."

"He beat you," Keito finished. "I don't care about the details, but those were the end results. You're no match for Saotome. You know this, and he knows this. And the other Enforcers know this too. So why, then, would they stick their necks out to destroy Saotome when Kuyo doesn't even know the fool's name?"

Haruo's eyes narrowed. "So that's it, huh? You're just afraid."

_Thwip!_ Haruo tried to let out a surprised gasp as a disc of webbing suddenly smacked into face, but suddenly found that his lips had been sealed shut.

"There. Maybe that will take the edge off that obnoxious mouth of yours," Keito mumbled, idly wiping a single white thread from the corner of her mouth. "As I already mentioned, I already tried to help you, but we failed because you're an idiot. I'm not afraid of Saotome, but I AM afraid of wasting my precious leisure time because I let some granite-headed dolt lead me around by the feelers."

Taking a moment to relish Haruo's silently enraged expression, she then continued. "In essence, though, you're right: Ranma Saotome is too strong to beat easily, so naturally, your peers and underlings don't wish to fight him if they can avoid it. And, as previously noted, they can avoid ever having to bother with him so long as Kuyo doesn't want to bother with him. So ultimately, until he pisses off the top brass, you're not going to get enough support to take him down directly."

Then Keito smiled, and Haruo felt mind-numbing terror crawl up his spine. "However... there are other ways to deal with a resilient foe. Do you want Big Sis Keito to give you a hint?"

Actually, there was nothing Haruo wanted more at that moment than to retreat from that office and hide under a rock, but he recognized that if Keito didn't let him out herself then he'd probably get tripped up on some of the webbing and be trapped there forever. Reluctantly, he nodded.

Keito's grin widened, and Haruo gulped as sharp, tusk-like mandibles poked out from behind her cheeks. "Strong enemies tend to have crippling weaknesses... loners have no one to rely on when they're vulnerable. Tyrants can be easily overwhelmed when their subjects are united against them. And noble ones are the worst, really. They'll sacrifice themselves in an instant to save someone too weak to be worth saving. Ring any bells?"

"Hmph rhgm hmp," Haruo responded, his mouth still covered.

"Sure, whatever." Keito's fangs retreated as her grin vanished. "That's all the time Big Sis has for you today. I don't want to hear the name Saotome again unless it's either from Kuyo or listed in the school newspaper's obituaries. Understood?"

Haruo nodded. 'Our school newspaper has obituaries? Actually, come to think of it, I haven't seen an issue this semester... wonder why.'

"You may go now," Keito said, idly reaching for a clump of webbing behind her head and giving it a slow tug.

The door to the office promptly creaked open as the cobwebs around its frame and doorknob tightened, and Haruo stumbled out gratefully as the sheets of webbing parted to allow him passage.

Keito watched him leave, her cold, indifferent expression hiding a small spark of pride deep within her. 'It's rather satisfying to see the young ones grow up like this, trading the sword for the poisoned dagger and learning the art of treachery,' she thought to herself. 'I hope Saotome doesn't torture him before he kills him.'

* * *

Note: Hey, both the characters introduced in this chapter were from the anime involved! I think I might be breaking this OC addiction!

End Chapter 6

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"Blast that Saotome! So his victory over me was not enough, then?" Saffron growled as he stalked through the main yard of Youkai Academy, his hands clenched into fists. It was fairly late in the afternoon, so there were few students about, and the grim pall that perpetually hung over Youkai was giving way to night.

"So even here, he seeks to humiliate me? Hmph! The fiend! And to think, I had thought to forgive him for his transgressions of the past!"

A more rational observer might have reasoned that the cause of such forgiveness may have had less to do with Saffron's nature and much more to do with the fact that Ranma was a familiar face with a relatively strong moral grounding amongst a sea of potentially murderous strangers, but as it was the Phoenix king wasn't about to admit to something so outrageous.

Finding a cluster of granite boulders piled high on the edge of the paved area, Saffron took a seat before opening up his orientation pamphlet, allowing his thoughts to simmer silently as he tried to locate his new residence.

"No doubt the hovel I'll be placed in will be no better than that enjoyed by Saotome and the rest of the rabble," he murmured in disgust, not really noticing as a pair of figures approached him with obviously angry intent.

"Hey, small fry!" shouted a rough voice from above, and a frustrated groan escaped from Saffron's lips as he raised his head to make eye contact with the speaker.

It turned out to be the rough-looking fellow with the bushy eyebrows that had been following Ranma earlier, along with another boy that Saffron could barely recall seeing briefly when he had stepped into the fight club.

"Whatever you want, make it quick," the Phoenix king said negligently as he looked back down at the pamphlet. "I don't have time for the prattling of fools."

The two boys' faced twisted into angry snarls, and Kouma's eyes flashed an angry red. "LOOK AT ME when I'm talking to you, runt!" the hellhound shouted, black smoke seeping from between his clenched teeth. When Saffron sighed and once again made eye contact, Kouma's eyes narrowed. "You have a lot of nerve treating Miss Wildman like that, scumbag."

Saffron raised an eyebrow. "Wildman? Who is that?"

"That's the name of the redhead that decked you through the wall," the second boy said, chuckling slightly.

Saffron grimaced as he stood up. "I see. Putting aside that she defended her honor quite well on her own, do YOU truly think to condemn MY actions? It seems she's not the only one who does not know her place."

Kouma's dark expression shifted further into the "murderous" range. "Don't think that just because Saotome says you resurrect that we won't kill you anyway," he spat, his hands starting to glow a furious orange. "If it doesn't take the first time, we can always try again. And again. And again." The other boy chuckled slightly as he raised a fist, small spines poking out from between his knuckles.

"Hmph. It's true what my advisers told me. The lower races truly are full of lambs to be slaughtered," Saffron mumbled absently as he tucked away the pamphlet.

_Fwoom!_ As soon as the fragile, flammable paper was out of the way, Saffron's hands lit ablaze, and the Phoenix king smirked smugly at the shocked expressions on the boys' faces.

"Come then, fools. I shall open the door to oblivion for you," Saffron intoned even as the students harassing him paled.

"W-We'll take care of this later!" Kouma said in a panic, backing away slowly even as his companion turned tail and ran. "Don't think this is over!" the hellhound followed suit a moment later, instinctively falling onto his hands and dashing away on all fours.

Saffron snorted, slightly surprised that the pair had fled so easily. "I suppose that merely being stupid doesn't entirely preclude the instincts of self-preservation," the Phoenix king mumbled as he sat back down.

_Whump!_ Or at least, he tried to sit back down. At some point during the scuffle the rock he had been sitting on had apparently vanished, and Saffron promptly fell flat on his back.

It was then that he noticed the... **thing** that had been standing behind him. It was hard to tell from Saffron's current perspective of staring straight up into the creature's wiggling fangs, each like a sickle dripping with poisonous juices, exactly what the thing was, but a few more seconds of observation yielded plenty of clues. Glancing all around him, he took note of eight thick, scythe-tipped legs, each one covered in a mottled gray carapace that had done well in resembling innocent granite boulders. Stretching his neck to look further down the creature's body revealed a small, pinched body segment to which all the legs were connected, and beyond that was a massive, swollen rear section tipped with a spike at the end.

"I should have stayed in China," Saffron mumbled miserably as the gigantic spider's hungry fangs descended upon him. 


	8. Breaking Minds, Smashing Faces

"Hello everyone! Are you ready to have some fun?" Shizuka Nekonome cheered as she thrust a fist into the air.

"Today we begin our new feature: Meet the Teachers! In order to give the school bookies time to take bets on Ranma Saotome's species, we've decided to launch a new feature that gives YOU, the reader, fresh insight into the background and motivations of our wonderfully dysfunctional faculty!"

With an elegant twirl, the nekomata gestured to the redheaded advisor to the fight club. "May I present our assistant gym instructor, Riza Wildman!"

To the side of Shizuka, Riza lounged in a small wooden chair with one arm over the back rest and a bored expression on her face. "Okay, so what do I have to do, again?"

"Explain to us a little about yourself and how you came to be a teacher at Youkai Academy!" Shizuka said.

Riza hesitated as she scratched her cheek. "Well... I guess I should say first that I'm a warrior, born and raised. I'm not really too much into this 'civilization' bit, but things just kind of turned out this way."

She sighed. "I'm a half-werewolf, half-human hybrid, so it's not like I have any problem being among humans or adapting, and I suppose that's why I managed to get the job. They need teachers that have actually lived with humans peacefully... not that my life among humans had much in the way of peace, but you get the idea."

The redhead smiled wistfully as she continued speaking. "I used to work for this royal chick back in the day, acting as a bodyguard because she had a lot of trouble with assassination attempts. It was pretty hairy, but at least it was never boring, and I got free room and board."

Then she crossed her arms over her chest. "Problem was, the princess didn't pay us, so when I got my motorcycle wrecked for like the fifth time trying to save her skin from the giant man-eating crab of the week, the mechanic threw away my credit card and kicked me out. I've been hiding from debt collectors ever since."

Riza shrugged. "I needed money to fix my wheels and pay off the debts, and I heard that there was this place that was hiring monsters to teach kids how to imitate humans. I never considered a career in education until now, but what was I supposed to do? Wandering monsters and assassins just don't yield the kind of loot that they used to, you know? So in the end I kind of put my grand quest to avenge my brother's death on hold until I can walk down the street without being chased by repo men. And here I am."

Nodding sharply, Riza completed her tale, and then noticed that Shizuka was glaring at her with her ear-like tufts of hair pressed back against her head.

"What?" Riza asked, perplexed.

Shizuka bristled, and then turned away sharply. "Hmph. I didn't know you were a wolf."

Riza sweatdropped. "Oh, get over it. Damn cat."

The nekomata hissed in annoyance. "Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully we'll have a better guest for next time. Have fun!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: Screw your series two! I always preferred Tsukune as a wuss and Inner Moka as an obnoxious talking fashion accessory, and now **I'M** in control! Ha ha! Ha ha ha hah! MWAA HA HA HA HAAA!

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 7  
Breaking Minds, Smashing Faces

* * *

The day began like any other day for Ranma; with a scream and a flurry of motion.

"GWAH! GET IT OFF!"

Granted, it was different in that he wasn't doing any of the screaming or motion, and as a result the pigtailed boy spent several seconds in a confused haze as he stared at his pillow, slowly coming to the realization that he wasn't staring at either the koi pond or the ground rushing up to meet him.

Belatedly turning his head to look at Tsukune's bed, he saw the younger human clinging to the head board as he panted for breath, his face pale. The reason for his unease probably had something to do with one of the larger tarantulas crawling lazily across the top of his comforter, seemingly unaware or unbothered by the terror it had caused.

"Morning 'Kune," Ranma yawned, scratching the back of his head as Tsukune shuddered. "You okay? She didn't bite you or nothin' did she?"

After the other human took some time to ensure that his heart was still beating, he shook his head. "No... No, I'm okay..." he said wearily, loosening his grip on his bed frame. "Just... startled me, I guess. I'm not used to waking up to one of those things staring me in the face..."

"Sorry about that," Ranma mumbled as he pushed himself out of bed sluggishly. "Look on the bright side, though; a shot of adrenaline like that wakes ya right up." Honestly, Ranma almost missed being tossed out his window on school days; with only his own will power and the dubious incentive of class to get him up in the morning, he had been getting lazier and lazier when it came to getting out of bed.

"Okay, sure. Whatever you say," Tsukune said nervously as he slowly inched out of bed, trying not to disturb his unwelcome visitor while also scanning the floor for more spiders. "I have to say though, I think this spider thing is getting out of hand."

Ranma stopped shambling toward the bathroom and turned his head. "Eh? Out of hand how?"

Tsukune frowned as he considered his words. "Simple things like hygiene and presentability. Have you ever considered what would happen if we had guests? Don't you remember what happened to Kouma?"

"Well, he wasn't exactly a 'guest', really," Ranma protested.

"Ranma..." Tsukune crossed his arms over his chest.

"And they aren't aggressive as long as nobody makes cat noises!"

"RANMA..." Tsukune said louder, his expression stern.

The pigtailed boy deflated, and he glanced down to where one of the melon-sized arachnids was crawling up onto his leg. "All right, all right, I get it. You have a point."

Tsukune nodded. "Thank you. I want to be fair about this, Ranma. You can keep spiders, but having them running around free like this in our room isn't okay. What do you think the girls would think if they came in here?"

"I understand," Ranma said weakly, clearly chastened. "I'll find somewhere to-"

He was interrupted by a knocking sound, and Ranma turned to get the door. "Hold on, someone's here. We'll sort this out later."

Tsukune nodded as he moved toward his dresser to put on his uniform.

Ranma reached the door and opened it, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Kurumu waiting in the hall.

"Hi Ranma! I just wanted to-WHOA! Is that a giant spider?" she shouted in shock, her eyes widening as she noticed the arachnid crawling up the side of Ranma's boxers.

The pigtailed boy winced. "Well, yeah, but don't worry it's-"

"Oh my gosh! That is SO CUTE!" the succubus exclaimed, her face breaking into a smile as she crouched down to stare eye-to-eye with the hairy creature. "I didn't know you and Tsukune kept giant spiders!"

"Er... yes. Yes we do," Ranma said awkwardly as the busty monster stroked the arachnid's swollen abdomen. "I... didn't know you liked spiders. Really, I didn't know anybody really liked spiders." Frankly, he had only grown attached to them because they were plentiful and obedient, not out of any particular affection for the species.

"Of course I love spiders!" Kurumu cooed. "Who could resist those beady little eyes and wriggling little fangs?" She looked up at Ranma. "Can I hold him?"

"Knock yourself out," Ranma mumbled, turning his head to give Tsukune a meaningful glance.

The younger human shrugged weakly as he fixed his tie, obviously having no more insight into Kurumu's tastes than his roommate.

"Eeee! He's so warm and fuzzy!" Kurumu squealed as she held the spider up and rubbed her cheek against its back. "Does he do any tricks?"

"Just one," Ranma admitted. "I can show it to you if you want, but you'll need to come to me and Tsukune's homeroom class. Miss Nekonome is the only cat-person I-"

"Never mind! Never mind that!" Tsukune suddenly shouted, stepping up behind Ranma now that he was fully dressed. "Kurumu! Hi! What are you doing here?"

"Hi darling!" the succubus purred as she promptly latched onto the shorter man, pressing his face into her breasts as was their (or rather, her) usual greeting custom.

Normally Tsukune felt a great deal of guilty pleasure from the over-affectionate gesture, but this time his face darkened as he found himself mere inches away from the giant spider, which was now sitting on Kurumu's shoulder and wiggling its feelers at him.

"I just stopped by so we could all have breakfast together!" Kurumu said brightly, continuing to pillow Tsukune's head even as the hairy arachnid crawled over the swell of her breasts and onto his hair.

"I'll have to meet up with you guys. I have to wash up and stuff first," Ranma said as he headed back into the dorm room.

"Okay! See you later!" Kurumu chirped before she finally altered her hold on Tsukune to drag her along behind her rather than suffocate him in her cleavage.

"Wait... spider... head... s-stop," Tsukune stuttered nervously as he tried to keep pace while keeping his head perfectly level. He could feel the heavy arachnid shifting through his hair, and the constant movement of furry legs sent chills up and down his spine.

"Don't worry about it; I'm sure he could use some fresh air anyway! Now c'mon, Moka is waiting for us in the cafeteria!" the succubus said cheerfully as Tsukune groaned weakly behind her.

* * *

"All right maggots, listen up!" Haruo growled. "Do you know why I called you here today?"

Currently the restless gargoyle was pacing in front of a line of four other Enforcers, each of them devoid of the rank badge that marked Haruo's chest and labeled him a junior officer.

"I called you idiots here because you're the only morons among the Enforcers of lower rank than me! You're the worst of the worst, the scum of the Enforcers!" Haruo growled, his eyes glowing slightly as they swept over the recruits.

"Dude... harsh," a lanky Enforcer with his hands in his pockets mumbled gloomily.

"I was only recruited recently! Gimme a break!" growled a larger student with wild hair and curiously wrinkled skin.

"Hmph. Just tell us what you want, already," demanded a short boy with dark rings around his eyes.

"The only reason I'm below you in rank is because I actually follow the rules and stop fights rather than taking in bribes for the squad!" snapped the final Enforcer, a boy with shaggy white hair that obscured his eyes.

The others quickly glanced at the last speaker, surprised.

"Wait, seriously?" the lanky grunt asked, raising an eyebrow. "Why do you bother?"

"It's an alignment thing. I don't wanna talk about it," the shaggy boy growled.

Haruo shook his head. "I don't care what excuses you have for being so pathetic, but today you're in luck," the gargoyle said, his mouth breaking into a grin. "Because today we're going to kill Ranma Saotome."

The four junior Enforcers looked utterly shocked at the revelation.

"What? Why?"

"Never mind why, I'm more interested in 'how'!"

"No, no, he's right; why should we even bother trying to take down the hot shot of the freshman class?"

Haruo snorted. "Ranma Saotome stands accused of three separate counts of assaulting an Enforcer without provocation, one count of possessing an unregistered pet in the dorms, rampant truancy, repeated destruction of public property, and a buddy of mine from class D said that he totally cut in line once during lunch!"

"Ah. I see." "Yup." "Shoulda known."

Only the white-haired boy dared dispute the trumped-up charges. "Do you take us for morons? We all know exactly what 'crime' he committed. You started a fight with him and he defended himself. Now you're trying to drag all the rest of us into your stupid grudge match!"

Haruo considered the question briefly, scratching the underside of his chin. "Yes, I do take you for morons."

The four Enforcers bristled, and Haruo rolled his eyes. "Now, now. Have you considered the respect and fame you'll command once the infamous Ranma Saotome has fallen by your efforts? At the very least, a promotion among the Enforcers would be in order as a reward for your prowess and foresight in taking down such a... disruptive figure."

Considering the matter closed, the gargoyle turned to a chalkboard with a crude stick-figure drawing of Ranma on it and many arrows pointing to him. At the other ends of the arrows were random monster heads, every one of them with X's for eyes.

"Anyway, here's the plan: obviously, a four-way direct assault might work, but Saotome can be tricky and he has friends. At best, we'd defeat him with severe casualties."

The short Enforcer raised his hand. "Four-way? Including you, there are five of us."

"Quiet down, that plan is no good," the gargoyle snapped. Then he pointed to the next picture, which had Ranma's head drawn at the end of a little bed with its eyes closed and a bubble coming from his nose. Surrounding the bed was several stick figure spiders.

"Plan B was to attack while he was asleep. However, my efforts at scouting have revealed that his bed is protected by a picket of deadly arachnid sentries!"

The lanky boy scratched his head. "Giant spiders? Seriously? I could take 'em all out in a jiffy," he snapped his wrist to the side, and a butterfly knife slipped into his palm where he flipped it open. "I can do it silent as the wind, too. He wouldn't hear a thing."

"No, that's okay," Haruo said weakly, shaking his head. "If Keito heard I had a bunch of spiders killed..." well, honestly, he had no idea how upset she'd be, but the spider-woman was scary enough that he wasn't willing to take the risk. "Anyway, I've decided on plan C!"

Seeing his minions' doubtful expressions, Haruo cleared his throat. "You'll be happy to know, first of all, that this plan doesn't involve you fighting Saotome in any way, shape or form."

Three of the junior Enforcers breathed sighs of relief, while the wrinkled one frowned. "If we don't fight him, how are we going to gain respect and fame for beating him?"

"All will become clear at the end," Haruo promised as he moved to the end of the chalkboard. This one had a picture of the Enforcers surrounding a cage with stick-figure drawings of Tsukune, Kurumu, Moka, and Yukari inside. Off to the side, a stick-figure Haruo was kicking a stick-figure Ranma while the latter drawing cried and called for his mommy.

"You see, rather than trying to overcome Saotome's full strength or wait for him to be vulnerable, instead we - and by we I mean you - will capture his friends, and then we'll threaten to kill them if he resists! And then we - and by we I mean I - can kill him instead without any fear of getting beaten to a bloody pulp!"

The other Enforcers looked skeptical as they went over the plans.

"I guess it could work..." the short one mumbled, "I mean, as long as nobody unexpected gets in our way and his friends turn out to be total pushovers."

"Yeah, about that," the shaggy-haired boy said as he grimaced, "isn't Akashiya supposed to be a vampire? You know, one of the so-called 'strongest monsters in the world'?"

"I heard that the babe is no wimp either," the lanky Enforcer grumbled as he played with his knife, "and the shorty is a witch. I hate magic." He snapped his knife shut, and with a twist of his wrist it vanished back into his sleeve. "But what's even more worrisome is Aono. I don't mind going up against a strong opponent if I know what I'm getting into, but nobody knows what kind of monster he is. If there's one thing I hate more than magic, it's a wild card."

"By the way, you still haven't explained how all this under-handed stuff is gonna give us street cred against Saotome," the larger Enforcer pointed out.

Haruo nodded seriously. "Those are all valid concerns, and you're to be commended for your foresight and wisdom in noting them." Then he thrust a fist into the air. "Now prepare to move out! I need all of Saotome's loved ones rounded up and at our mercy ASAP! Get to it!"

The junior Enforcers grimaced as they watched their superior march out of the room, each one getting a strong feeling that they were being set up for failure.

"Well, what the hell? I didn't have anything else planned for the rest of my life anyway," the lanky boy mumbled as he rubbed his hair.

"Eh, we might as well give it a shot. Haruo can get us in trouble for disobeying him, after all," the short boy noted, turning his sagging eyes to the boy with white hair. "You coming?"

"I have to," the only ethical Enforcer growled. "The orders came from a superior, and I'm lawful."

"That sucks, dude," said the largest of the group as he cracked his knuckles. "Whelp, we have our orders to beat up a bunch of girls and a helpless wimp. Let's go enforce some law and order!"

* * *

Ranma hummed to himself as he scrubbed himself clean underneath the warm spray of the shower head, his voice unconsciously mimicking a certain tune he had once been subjected to while asleep. He had been humming it a lot recently whenever he was alone, and for some reason he was always reminded of Kana when he did so.

Actually, he had spent a lot of time thinking on his new friends here at Youkai Academy, and that occasionally led him to think about the friends - or, more often, malicious acquaintances - he had left behind in Nerima.

Ranma honestly felt a little ashamed of how well things were going here. Sure, things had started out badly enough, but recently hardly a day went by when he didn't see something new or interesting. The fights had started getting more exciting too, and there was even more variety behind them; his last opponent, Chopper, hadn't even forced him into a battle or demanded terms when he wanted a scrap. It was a refreshingly original approach to being a violent psychopath, and Ranma could appreciate that.

On the less violent side of things, his relationships with his friends and even the students who he wasn't close to could hardly be better. Tsukune had pretty much become a little brother to him, and he found Kurumu, Kana, and Yukari's company to be a nice change from those of his female companions back home. Even Moka was fun to have around, if only so he could tease the bloodsucker.

Therein lay the guilt, however. The girls back in Nerima weren't just his friends, they were his fiancees, and some of them had real, legitimate claims to his future (if not his heart). It felt wrong to simply shove them aside because they were getting too pushy and replace them.

Akane was the worst case. After the fight with Saffron, he had thought that they had finally made a connection; that perhaps, just maybe, they were finally ready to move beyond the skittish denial and jealous tantrums that more often than not exemplified their relationship. And for all he knew, they had been. But rather than staying and exploring his feelings for her, he had instead hopped on the last bus to some creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere filled with horrific beasts ready to tear him limb from limb.

And by God, he was really starting to like it. Ranma couldn't say he missed the Tendo Dojo with so much as a drop of sincerity, and even Akane, the supposed love of his life, occupied his thoughts less and less nowadays.

Of course, it's not like he wouldn't see Nerima ever again; from what he was told, he would be allowed to visit the human world after each semester, and Ranma was sure that all the folks he had left behind would be waiting to mob him the very moment he set foot in the prefecture. And as miserable as that experience was sure to be, it was still far better than if the people in Nerima managed to track him down here instead.

Ranma shuddered as he thought about what would happen if a bunch of Neriman humans forced their way into Youkai Academy and found themselves surrounded by a veritable army of creatures from man's worst nightmares.

Those poor monsters...

After a few more seconds, Ranma realized that the cold chill wasn't just from his morbid thoughts, and he looked up to see that the tiny bathroom window located above his dorm's shower was open.

"Hey, Mizore, could you close the window? It's a bit cold," he asked, moving closer to the jet of steaming water and allowing it to cover more of his body.

_Clack!_ The window promptly slid shut.

_Sssslt!_ Then, after a few seconds, it slid open again.

"Wait, you knew I was here?" Mizore's voice asked from outside the window. Ranma couldn't see her, but figured she was peeking in from above the window judging by her voice and the possible angles involved.

"Well, no offense, but you kinda suck at being stealthy," Ranma said as he started to lather his hair. "Seriously, my Pop is way better at stalking than you, even while in panda form."

Mizore frowned. Nobody had ever told her that she was a bad stalker before. She had always assumed that sheer persistence for her creepy fixations made up for poor sneaking. "What can I do to be better?"

"Well, I'm not sure, but you've got a lot of issues with your approaches," Ranma noted as he washed out the lather. "For one thing - and this is just for starters - every time you get close, the air temperature drops a few degrees. That's a pretty big hint."

"I see... what else?" as she kept Ranma talking, she fit the extended lens of a large camera into the open window, tilting it down to get the proper angle as she adjusted the zoom.

_Splap!_ Mizore frowned as a washcloth was thrown into her camera's lens, wrapping around the end and completely obscuring the view.

"Second, you're going to need a pocket camera if you wanna take good stalker pics," Ranma advised as he turned off the water. "I don't remember exactly what model Nabiki used, but it was a small digital thing." He stepped out of the shower and then wrapped a towel around his waist right before the wet cloth fell off the camera lens. "There's technique to it, too: you have to take the picture quickly, usually without looking through the lens itself. Probably takes some practice."

He swiped a comb through his hair a few time so that it looked merely messy rather than like a wet mop over his head, and then the martial artist waved toward the window as he walked out to the bedroom. "Anyway, give it some thought. See you later."

The bathroom door closed, and Mizore's head slowly lowered itself down to the window, staring into the bathroom upside-down.

"... How does he know so much about stalking?" she wondered aloud.

* * *

Tsukune sometimes wondered about the future.

Not the immediate future, concerning whether or not he was going to be eaten by a chimera by evening, but about the distant future, concerning his career and the path his life might take after completing his education.

Currently, he was considering monster anthropology. Sometimes it was truly fascinating - and on occasion, quite important - to take note of the fundamental differences in monster and human societies. Many of these points were given even greater emphasis because the monsters were, ostensibly, supposed to be acting like humans, and the observations were really quite fascinating.

Case in point: today he had learned that among monsters tarantulas basically replaced puppy-dogs in the role of pets that doubled as major chick magnets.

"Ooh, look at his fuzzy widdle abdomen," one girl cooed as she reached up atop Tsukune's head to scratch the aforementioned part. Every word tickled his ear with the warmth of her breath, and the human's face burned red.

"He's adorable! What's his name?" Asked another girl who was resting her arms on Tsukune's shoulders as she stared up at the arachnid.

"I, uh, think this one was... Ken? Sure, let's go with that," Tsukune said as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. There were two more of his female classmates standing on their tip-toes in front of him to better pet the spider on his head, both of them either unaware or uncaring that they were practically shoving their breasts into his face. "These aren't really my spiders; Ranma keeps them."

Kurumu had briefly left him at the entrance of the cafeteria, having found that Moka and Yukari hadn't arrived yet. The moment she was gone the four girls appeared as if from ambush, apparently enraptured by the hairy creature squatting on his head.

"What do you feed it?" asked the first girl, moving just close enough that one of her breasts brushed against Tsukune's arm.

"W-Well, I guess I've s-seen it eating roaches, mostly," Tsukune stuttered, wondering when his friends were going to hurry up and arrive. Not that he particularly wanted Moka to see him with a bunch of strangers hanging off of him, but at the moment he was too terrified to so much as move a muscle and his body was cramping up. "Again, Ranma is the one who takes care of them."

"You know, I always thought about getting one of these, but the dorms don't allow pets! Where do you keep him?"

"Er... that's actually k-kind of a point of contention right now," Tsukune admitted, his eyes darting rapidly from side to side.

"What do you mean?" One girl asked curiously.

"Well... not everybody's a fan of huge, hairy, poisonous things crawling all over their bedrooms," Tsukune hedged, stopping just short of admitting that he was among them.

"Are you serious? Who doesn't like spiders?" asked the first girl while tickling the arachnid's legs.

"I dunno, maybe they're allergic? To the hair? Or maybe the venom?" another schoolgirl guessed while shrugging.

Tsukune was saved from having to answer further questions when he saw the front door to the cafeteria open up to reveal a far more familiar group of schoolgirls. "Oh! Moka! Hi! Sorry girls, I've gotta go now! Excuse me!"

"Awwww..." the girls pouted as Tsukune managed to squeeze out from between them, rushing as fast as he could toward his friends without disturbing the creature on his head too much.

"Hey! Who were those girls back there?" Kurumu demanded as Tsukune reached them, his face flushed.

"I don't really know them; they were just fawning over the spider, that's all," the human insisted.

Moka looked mildly interested in the arachnid as she looked it over, and Tsukune noted with great interest that Yukari grimaced.

"Why do you have that... THING on your head?" the witch asked in annoyance.

"He kind of just ended up there," Tsukune said, "and he hasn't moved in almost twenty minutes, so I guess he likes it up there. He's Ranma's."

The young witch shook her head. "Ugh. I can understand the utility of keeping and training such creatures, but you shouldn't WEAR them."

Moka turned to the young witch as they all moved to get in line for food. "Do you not like spiders, Yukari?"

Kurumu snickered. "I could see that. She's probably small enough that some of the bigger ones might mistake her for food."

"Hey! That's not true!" Yukari said angrily. "And what about you?"

Kurumu shrugged as she got a tray and started piling food onto it. "What about me? I think it's adorable."

"You didn't think that the huge spider in the well was adorable," Yukari pointed out as she got her own meal.

Kurumu's smirk turned into a frown. "They're not cute anymore when they get that big... and when they're trying to kill you."

"Well, now you know how I feel," Yukari retorted, sticking her tongue out at the succubus and incidentally confirming Kurumu's earlier assumption to be true.

"I guess I don't understand what the big deal is," Moka said as she carried her tray to a table, leading the others. "Aren't there spiders all over outside?"

"Tch! You really DON'T understand!" Kurumu chided as she sat down across from the vampiress, making sure she got the seat closest to Tsukune. "It's not about the spiders themselves! Training nice, obedient pets like this is proof of Tsukune's ability as a leader and a family man!" She promptly nuzzled the boy's shoulder, idly patting the giant spider on its back. "You'll be a great father for our children, right Tsukune?"

"Erm... like I said, I didn't-" the hapless human was interrupted as Yukari snorted.

"I fail to see how keeping a few filthy arthropods in line qualifies one as a father," Yukari deadpanned between mouthfuls.

Moka chuckled uncertainly. "Well, I... suppose it doesn't hurt, right?"

Tsukune mostly tried to tune out the girls as they started discussing the psychological indicators of spider husbandry in more detail, and as his eyes wandered the cafeteria he happened to notice a familiar face passing by behind him and heading to a table off in the corner.

"Hey, it's Kouma! Gamaroshi, over here!" Tsukune called, seeing the hellhound and welcoming an easy chance to change the topic at hand.

Kouma halted in his tracks, and he raised an eyebrow upon seeing some kid he vaguely remembered seeing before waving at him from a table.

Not having anything better to do, he wandered closer to the boy and frowned at him. "Do I know you?"

"Of course you do! Remember? You threatened to beat me up for treating you like a dog once!" Tsukune said, beckoning the shaggy-haired boy over.

Kouma's brow furrowed as he walked right up behind Tsukune. "That doesn't really narrow it down much..."

Tsukune turned back to the girls and gestured to the new arrival. "Everyone, this is Gamaroshi Kouma! He's Ranma's partner in the fight club!"

Kouma's face darkened immediately. "Oh. Now I remember you. Saotome's friend. What do you want?" He stared down at the top of Tsukune's head for a few seconds, and then poked the tarantula resting there. "And what's with the creepy headgear?"

"P-Please don't disturb him too much," Tsukune stuttered before turning to the girls. "Let me introduce you! This is Akashiya Moka, Sendo Yukari, and she's Kurono Kurumu! Say hi everyone!"

Nobody said hi, and Kouma shifted uncomfortably as three pairs of eyes silently judged him. "What?"

"Did you really attack Tsukune?" Kurumu said warningly, holding her love's arm tighter as if to protect him.

"I was just gonna rough him up a little for treatin' me like a dog. I wasn't gonna injure him or anything," Kouma protested. "Anyway, I'm gonna go-"

"No! No! Have a seat!" Tsukune said happily, pulling the hellhound down onto the bench next to him. "Ranma will be here soon anyway!"

Kouma's bushy eyebrows twitched in annoyance. "That's just... swell."

"Tell us all about the fight club! What kind of stuff do you guys get into?" Tsukune asked, hoping to strike up a lasting conversation with the boy. Truthfully, he still wasn't completely comfortable being surrounded by girls frequently, and his nervousness escalated considerably when the topic was how good a father or husband he would be.

Kouma, for his part, was completely perplexed that someone would ask him to stick around just for conversation. At best he was rather apathetic company, and much more often he was pointlessly rude and defensive. What did Tsukune want with him?

"Look, if you want to know about fight club, just ask Saotome, all right? I don't want to be around when he gets here," the hellhound murmured.

"What's your problem with Ranma?" Kurumu asked, inadvertently drawing Kouma into a topic of interest.

"What's my problem with him? My problem is that he's a self-absorbed, neurotic jackass!" the hot-tempered monster growled, slamming his tray down onto the table and finally sitting down properly.

Moka's eyebrow arched, and she suddenly looked far more interested. "Well, sure, but what did he do to you **personally**?"

Kouma bit off a chunk of ham from his plate, and then gulped it down as his fury rose. "Well, for STARTERS, that nitwit jumped me in the forest and beat me unconscious, and then tried to make me his pet!"

Yukari blinked in surprise. "Really? He took you as a familiar?"

"I SAID he jumped me and beat me unconscious!" Kouma snarled, his eyes flaring crimson. "In what world does that make me his servant?"

Yukari seemed to be unfazed by the hellhound's rage. "Actually, that's a perfectly valid way of acquiring a servant in most monsters' cultures, and even some older human ones. In fact, I believe that hellhounds tend to-"

"HEY!" Kouma shouted, slamming a fist into the table and causing the others except Yukari to wince. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Well, I'm on Senpai's side, of course," Yukari deadpanned. "If you ask me, it seems like all your hostility toward him is just simple envy and resentment because he's stronger than you."

_Wham!_ Kouma slammed his other fist onto the table as he stood up. "What'd you say, runt?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"Not that anything you said about him is wrong!" Moka pointed out, nodding rapidly. "And really, what right does he have to run around subduing random students to make into familiars?"

"Yeah! I'm right, aren't-" Kouma immediately rounded on Moka. "Hey! I am NOT his familiar!"

"Well, not a very good one," Kurumu mumbled, rolling her eyes. "Most familiars have that nasty temper hammered out of them fairly early. Then again, I guess that's Ranma's fault for not keeping a tight leash on you."

"STOP TREATING ME LIKE A DOG!" Kouma shouted, rounding on the succubus as small flames puffed from his mouth.

"It's just an expression! Please, calm down!" Tsukune begged as the fire blasted in front of him, agitating the giant spider still sitting atop his hair. "Nobody's calling you a dog!"

"But he IS a dog," Yukari pointed out.

"Well, sure, but that doesn't mean you can treat me like some human world terrier!" Kouma snapped, sitting back down as his rage returned to a slow boil. "I come from a long line of mighty warrior hounds and honored guardians! I'm not going to let anyone treat me like a pet!"

Tsukune frowned. "You know... if you just... well... followed the rules and didn't reveal your species, that wouldn't even be a problem. Nobody could tell that you're a hellhound if you didn't run around in monster form or tell people."

Kouma's anger dissipated and he blinked. Twice. "Huh." Then he put down his chopsticks and started rubbing his chin while staring at the ceiling. "You know... I never thought of it that way. Is THAT why they have that stupid rule?"

"No, they have it so that people will act human, moron," Yukari snapped. "But if you're going to get all worked up over people making fun of your species, then it's a nice unintended consequence, don't you think?"

Kouma snorted disdainfully at the young witch, but Tsukune turned toward her. "You know, the same thing applies to you, Yukari. If people didn't know you were a witch, they wouldn't have an excuse to mistreat you all the time."

"Don't put me in the same category as the hellmutt!" Yukari snapped, turning up her nose as she chomped on a sausage. "I don't care about people's stupid prejudices. Besides..." she tugged on the rim of her pointed hat. "The hat stays."

"Izzat them?"

"How the hell should I know? I've only seen these people in stick figure form!"

"Well, I know that the short stick figure drawing had a pointy hat, and the short one here has a pointy hat. I'm pretty sure three out of the four stick figures were girls, too, so those numbers match up."

"There are two guys, though. Nobody said anything about two guys. Guys are tougher than girls, you know."

"That's sexist!"

"No, that's a biological fact. This next bit is sexist: girls are also dumber than guys, so we should be able to catch them easily if we distract them with a shoe sale or something."

The shaggy-haired Enforcer remained quiet as his three compatriots continued arguing, and he scanned the room to gauge the scene. Most of the students in the cafeteria had noticed the Enforcer squad arriving, and most of those that didn't had noticed them mumbling amongst themselves while in a loose huddle. The cafeteria was emptying rapidly as most of the student body guessed correctly that the student police squad hadn't come for breakfast. The group that his teammates were discussing were one of the few clusters of people that hadn't noticed them at all.

"Hah... this is pointless," the white-haired boy sighed before suddenly slapping one of the other Enforcers in the arm to get his attention. "Hey, Saotome is pretty well-known, right? Then why don't we just ASK if those are his associates? We do have authority around here, you know."

The tall, lanky Enforcer raised an eyebrow. "Boy Scout over here's got a point. We're making this way harder than it needs to be."

"Let's go," the shortest boy said, his gloomy eyes narrowing as he started walking toward the table where their suspected targets were.

"Wha... wait... where..." the so-called "Boy Scout" watched in confusion as his companions marched right up behind the group they were spying on and tapped the shorter boy of the group on the shoulder.

Tsukune turned around, noticing that there were four people in black uniforms with Enforcer bands on their sleeves. "Yes? Can I help you?"

The largest of the enforcers stepped forward while cracking his knuckles. "Are you all associates of Ranma Saotome?"

The shaggy-haired Enforcer face palmed as all five targets immediately went on their guard, clearly aware that something was wrong. "I'm surrounded by idiots..."

Seeing that the newcomers were clearly spoiling for a fight, Tsukune glanced left and right, taking stock of their defenses. Kurumu had turned around on the bench to face the Enforcers, and had then started filing her nails... which had grown to almost six inches in preparation for battle. On the other side of him, Kouma was glaring at the intruders in annoyance, and although he hadn't put down his chopsticks, Tsukune could see a thin line of smoke rising up from where he was holding the cheap wooden utensils. Yukari, likewise, seemed prepared for things to get ugly, and she was inspecting some of her razor-edged magic cards. Besides that, Ranma was going to be arriving sooner or later, which made the odds of survival very strong if they could stall long enough.

"Ranma Saotome? Why? Is there something wrong?" the human finally responded, wondering if there was any quick path to get out of arms' reach of the Enforcer in front of him. These sorts of encounters usually began with him being hauled up into the air by his shirt collar, and he only had three undamaged shirts left.

"Just answer the question, meatbag!" rasped the shortest enforcer. "You know him or not?"

"Yes, we know him," Kouma growled, turning his head just enough to glare at the Enforcers with one eye. "So what do you clowns want, anyway? We were kind of in the middle of a conversation, here."

'Okay, note to self: try to keep the hellhound from talking,' Tsukune thought to himself. 'I just hope his bark isn't worse than his bite.' He hesitated for a second. 'Additional note to self: never speak that term aloud in Kouma's presence. I don't really want to find out first-hand.'

"What has Ranma done, and what does it have to do with us?" Moka demanded, her delicate features twisted into a frown.

"Chill your pretty pink head, bloodsucker," demanded the tall, lanky boy, "we're asking the questions here."

"Okay..." Tsukune mumbled. "So... what else do you want to know?"

There was a long silence as the three Enforcers stared blankly at their targets, broken only by a frustrated groan from a fourth Enforcer standing behind them and trying to fight the urge to cry.

"Erm... well, I guess the next question would be if any of you would mind coming with us to be imprisoned without charge," the lanky Enforcer said uncertainly, feeling a bit confused.

"Ah. Well, I guess the next answer would be 'no'," Kurumu said promptly, holding out a hand and admiring the lengthened nails.

"It's not exactly a choice," the short thug admitted. "We're acting under the authority of the Enforcers, here."

"Then why did you phrase it as one?" Yukari deadpanned.

"All right, I've had enough!" the shaggy-haired boy suddenly shouted, causing the others to jump.

He marched up to Tsukune and then planted his hands on his hips as he glared at the students they had been sent to subdue. "Listen up, punks! I don't want to do this, but we have our orders to capture Saotome's friends to be used as hostages against him in a future arrest! For the sake of bringing him to justice, you will be coming with us! Preferably without resisting, but we are authorized to subdue you with force if necessary!"

"EXCUSE ME?" Kouma suddenly said dangerously, his eyes narrowing as he stood up and glowered at the Enforcers. "Did you just say you were gonna capture Saotome's friends to use in some cowardly plan to off him? In the name of **justice**?"

Kouma's chopsticks burned to ashes in his grip as he stared balefully at the uniformed students, and they all shrunk back slightly.

"Y... Y... Yes?" the white-haired boy said, trying to keep his voice steady before the intimidating hellhound.

"Gotcha. Then this has nothing to do with me," Kouma said suddenly as he picked up his tray from the tabletop. "See you around, Aono. Assuming you survive, of course."

Tsukune blanched as he watched the larger boy walk past the Enforcers. "Hey, wait! Are you really gonna leave us like this?"

Kouma didn't look back as he replied. "None of my business. If you want my advice, just let 'em take you. I seriously doubt a lame plan like that is going to work against Saotome anyway, and if you don't resist you might get to finish your breakfast. Later."

As the Enforcers turned back toward the group - looking noticeably relieved - Tsukune did some grim calculations in his mind. Not only was Kouma probably the strongest of everyone here, but without his help they were left with Kurumu as the only remaining fighter of any significant power. He imagined Yukari could help out somehow, but he doubted she would last long in a brawl, and he and Moka were both just as helpless.

He didn't want to surrender, especially since he knew it would put Ranma in danger, but how to get away? If only they had some kind of diversion...

Yukari blinked as Tsukune suddenly reached over and grabbed one of the magic cards she had arrayed on the table.

"Sorry, I'm borrowing this!" he said before he took out a pen and quickly scribbled something on it.

"All right, that's enough kids," said the large Enforcer as they advanced on their victims. "Time to put up your hands and-"

"DISTRACTION!" Tsukune yelled suddenly as he thrust the card out in front of him, causing the four thugs to stop in their tracks as they read what was on it.

"What, seriously? This is your diversion tactic?" the lanky boy said as he snorted. "How is the word 'meow' supposed to-"

His sentence was promptly cut short by a face full of angry spider as the tarantula on Tsukune's head leapt toward its new prey with a feral hiss, landing on the Enforcer's face.

"The hell! Get it off! OW!" the knife-user howled as he flailed his arms, stumbling into the short boy and knocking them both onto the floor.

"Let's go! Run!" Tsukune shouted as he dashed for the exit.

The largest Enforcer moved to grab him, but pain suddenly blossomed from his side as Kurumu darted in and slashed at his flank before kicking him hard in the ankle.

The shaggy-haired boy was too stunned by the sudden chaos to react immediately, and was even more stunned when a metal wash bin suddenly fell onto his head from nowhere. _Clang!_

"Get offa me, moron!" yelled the short Enforcer as he pushed the taller one off of himself, idly noting that the giant spider had jumped off the man's face after losing interest in the assault. "They're getting away!"

"After them!" the shaggy-haired boy shouted as he rubbed his head.

"The spider! Did anyone see where that damn spider went?" growled the knife-user, his face swollen and red from several fresh bites.

"Forget the spider, idiot! Get a move on!" demanded the largest of the group as he limped toward the exit, holding his side.

"This is the worst plan EVER!"

* * *

'Well, it seems like phase one is right on schedule,' thought Haruo as he strolled toward the main dorm complex, his hands in his pockets.

With a bunch of helpless weaklings soon to be in the palms of his hands, it was time to move to phase two; Ranma had to be informed of his friends' plight and then summarily executed.

Phase three mostly involved parties and hitting on the captured schoolgirls.

'But how to approach him,' the gargoyle considered, stopping in a small, sparsely wooded space littered with picnic tables and spider webs. 'I don't really want to go up to his room himself. I still don't know exactly what room it is, and if I guess the right one, it might be full of spiders.'

He grimaced at the thought. He normally didn't care one way or the other about arachnids, but having one bite him in the face and another boss him around had generated quite a bit of antipathy for the creatures.

"Stupid, filthy, oversized mosquito-eaters," Haruo grumbled before kicking a log attached to one of the larger webs, causing the entire thing to wobble and twitch.

There was an egg-shaped cocoon about the size of a child attached to the web further up, but Haruo completely dismissed it as unimportant as he went back to scheming.

'I could go looking for him myself, but we might miss each other... also, he might simply knock me out as soon as he sees me, before I get a chance to explain that he's not supposed to.'

He snapped his fingers. "I know! I'll just force some random schmuck to find him and tell him to meet me here!"

Haruo started looking around the area, frowning as he saw that the entire region was curiously barren and utterly devoid of students. "That's weird. It's almost time for classes to start, right?" He didn't really know, as he hadn't been to class since he became an Enforcer - Kuyo mandated that all Enforcers receive passing marks by default in their classes so that they could "go about maintaining order without distraction or conflict" - but it seemed like exactly the time of day when the areas between the school building and the dorms should be getting the most foot traffic.

He grimaced as he scanned left and right, and then he eventually spotted a large, solitary figure strolling to the main building in the distance, one hand in his pocket and a book bag slung over one shoulder.

"Hey! You! You there! By the authority of the Enforcers, I command you to halt!"

The rather large student stopped in his tracks at the command, and then turned to look at Haruo while pointing to himself.

"Yes! You! Come here! I have a task that requires your attention!" Haruo called, crossing his arms over his chest.

The student shrugged and started jogging over to him. As he approached, Haruo noted with some unease that he recognized this particular student.

'Chopper Rikishi? Damn! Another troublemaker that has yet to be put in his place!' Haruo seethed. Chopper held no particular grudges against the Enforcers, but was known to be a brawler who fought the strongest monsters he could find simply to prove himself in combat. It was also known that he was currently aiming to fight and defeat Kuyo himself, the leader of the Enforcers and one of the most powerful monsters at Youkai Academy.

'This could be tough. Rikishi isn't going to be easily intimidated, and I don't think I'd last thirty seconds against him. Maybe I'd better find someone else...'

He cleared his throat as the wrestler finally stopped within spitting distance of the Enforcer.

"Yo. What'cha want?" Chopper asked, running a hand over his greased hair with his free hand.

"I was just wondering why there were so few students on their way to class," Haruo said, clasping his hands behind his back. "Mass truancy leads to widespread delinquency. It's unacceptable for the students to be so lax," he declared imperiously.

"They're not skippin'. They're taking a different route after all the attacks that have been happening recently," Chopper explained, shrugging his massive shoulders.

Haruo blinked. "Attacks? What?"

"They say a huge spider's been attacking people around this area. Nobody knows if it's a student or an overgrown beast or what, but most people avoid this path now. I can take care of myself, so I don't care." Then he frowned. "Wait, so you haven't heard about any of this? Shouldn't the Enforcers be takin' care of this sort of thing?"

"The Enforcers will move out when it has been deemed necessary to do so!" Haruo snapped. "Obviously, this is no real threat, or we would have already mobilized!"

Chopper looked doubtful. "Well, okay, but I still think you should've known about it, at least..."

"Anyway, since there's nobody else around, I require a favor of you, Rikishi," Haruo said, making sure his tone wasn't too condescending. "Do you think you could locate Ranma Saotome within short order?"

"Saotome? Yeah, sure. Why?" the troll asked.

"I need you to inform him that his friends are in danger, and he needs to see me immediately," Haruo continued, his mouth curling into a smirk. "I will wait here for him. After you retrieve him, you may go about your business."

"Ooh, that does sound important. All right," Chopper agreed, turning around and jogging back toward the dorms.

Then he slid to a stop and glanced over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "So, you gonna be okay here on your own? You think you can beat the spider by yourself?"

"Why is it always spiders?" Haruo mumbled as he rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine! You just do your job, all right?"

Chopper didn't look convinced, but continued on his way anyhow. "All right, if you're sure! Just watch the stinger, man! Looks nasty!"

Haruo's brow furrowed as he watched the wrestler dash off into the distance, puzzling over his words. "A stinger? What? What is he..." he glanced over his shoulder.

Enormous scythe-tipped legs scuttled across the ground with mind-boggling stealth, carrying a massive body sheathed in a rock-hard carapace of mottled gray chitin. Gleaming black orbs like spheres of ebony decorated the creature's head, and Haruo could see his face paling in the reflection cast within them as a pair of dripping, pincer-like fangs lunged for him.

"WHOA!" the Enforcer took to the air without hesitation, trying to jump far enough to release his wings and fly away, but while he managed to dodge the massive spider's mandibles he ended up getting rammed by its head and crashed to the ground several meters away.

"Wh-What is this? How the hell does something that big sneak up on people?" Haruo cried as he shifted to gargoyle form without delay, his form growing substantially as his smooth human flesh was replaced by a tough, granite-rough hide and pair of large, bat-like wings sprouted from his back.

The gigantic spider stalked forward carefully, not getting too close as its prey scrambled to its feet. After a few seconds of sizing up its newfound food, the enormous arachnid started to walk sideways to circle around the gargoyle, effectively blocking off the clearest path to the safety of the school buildings.

Haruo, being a flier, didn't care. "Screw this! I'm outta here!" he declared, leaping upward with all his might and flapping his mighty wings.

His arachnoid foe seemed to have an appropriate response, and the Enforcer's eyes widened as the spider spat a thick wad of pearly film that spread apart in the air to become a net too wide for him to avoid.

"Gyack! Hey!" Haruo shouted as the sticky netting wrapped around him, and he quickly found that flapping his wings was becoming increasingly harder as the threads stuck to each other and got tangled. "No no no nononono NOOOOOOOO!"

_Wham!_ Haruo grunted painfully as he made an unwilling landing, hitting the ground with his arm and then rolling haphazardly across the ground and through the dry, leafless foliage that made up most of the terrain surrounding Youkai Academy.

On the plus side, the relatively thin airborne webbing mostly tore itself apart in the impact, and Haruo managed to rip his arms and legs free with ease as he got to his feet, although his wings were still gummed up good.

"Damn it, I've got to get away!" Haruo growled as he glanced behind him, gauging how much distance he had put between him and the gigantic spider.

He failed to ascertain that information because the gigantic spider wasn't behind him.

"Hah? Where'd it go?" Haruo asked, glancing around and failing to spot the beast. He had managed to get some distance away before he had been hit, but had been moving away from the main path rather than toward it. As a result he had landed deeper into the sparse and mostly dead forestland.

"What? Did it give up?" the gargoyle asked nervously, spinning around and around to try and keep himself aware of all sides at all times. However, no matter how much he searched around him, he couldn't see anything except dead trees, sheets of spider webbing, and a few rock outcroppings...

Haruo froze, and his blood ran cold as he stared at the numerous piles of large, granite boulders. Some of them were partially buried, some of them were stacked together like someone had been playing with them, and a few had been reduced to gray rubble, but every one of them could conceivably hide his alarmingly stealthy predator.

He remained absolutely still for a long time, the seconds stretching into minutes, before a barely perceptible scratching noise made him spin around wildly.

Several dry leaves bounced over the surface of a mass of granite, being blown by the cool morning wind. There wasn't so much as a twitch among the boulders themselves, though.

Haruo whirled about once more, his eyes glancing back and forth frantically as he checked each outcropping against his sketchy memory, trying to determine if any of them were closer than they used to be.

'Damn it... damn it... damn it...' his mental mantra repeated over and over as his heart thundered in his ears, which only made him MORE nervous as he considered that his panic might cause him to miss any sounds of his unexpected foe.

'My wings! If I can free my wings...' well, honestly all it would really do is force the spider to reveal its location in order to immobilize him again, but Haruo figured it was better than standing shock-still in the forest until he died of a heart attack.

Grunting painfully, he bent over as he stretched his wings over his head, the muscles in his back cramping painfully in the uncomfortable position as tried to scrape away the webbing with his claws.

_Sktch! Sktch!_

"GYAAA!" Haruo screamed as he heard a louder scratching noise from somewhere around him, and promptly fell over forward, twisting his body on the ground to glance around himself with wide, panicked eyes.

"That was way too loud to be the wind! I know you're out there! Stop messing with me, already!" the gargoyle demanded fiercely even as his body shivered from fear.

Only silence greeted his demands, and another gust of wind blowing through the area stuck a few leaves onto his wings, still wrapped as they were in gluey webbing.

"_Sniffle_..." a teardrop ran down the side of Haruo's rough, gritty cheek as the last of his resolve crumbled, and he at last stooped to the very last resort available to one of the mighty Youkai Enforcers.

"SOMEBODY! ANYBODY! HEEEEEEELP!"

* * *

"Moka, quick! Did we lose them yet?" Tsukune asked as he dashed around a corner, barely avoiding a random student as he moved back into a full sprint. Yukari was running alongside him, the fourteen year-old panting pathetically as she tried to keep up with the others.

Moka and Kurumu, being far more athletically inclined, were already several meters ahead, and Tsukune suspected that the only reason they hadn't left them and the pursuers in the dust was so that he and Yukari wouldn't be caught alone.

Moka glanced behind her briefly, and though she couldn't see the four Enforcers who were chasing them, she could hear the shouts and complaints of the numerous students filing into their classrooms as the four imbeciles barreled through them.

"We haven't lost them yet! Tsukune, what should we do?" Moka asked, glancing around for anything that could help.

"Let's duck into a classroom! Those idiots will pass us right by!" Kurumu suggested as she dodged to the side, almost smashing into Miss Nekonome.

"Not a chance! The hall is full of people to tell them where we went! We'll be trapped!" retorted Yukari.

"Then we have to get outside!" Tsukune decided. "Maybe we can outmaneuver them!"

After rounding another corner, Tsukune shouted, "Where's the nearest exit? Hurry!"

A few students nearby seemed startled and confused as the four fleeing teenagers skidded to a stop, and for a few seconds nobody said anything.

"It's right over there," said a hollow, wizened voice that immediately sent chills down Tsukune's spine.

He slowly turned toward the speaker, and then saw that Professor Richard was pointing nonchalantly toward a rather inconspicuous door next to the stairwell.

"Is... Is that really the way out?" Tsukune asked, understandably suspicious.

"Yes!" Richard confirmed. "However, there's a problem with the door. It seems someone covered it with impenetrable ice."

Kurumu raised an eyebrow. "It looks fine to me."

Richard turned sharply toward the doorway in question, and his eyes narrowed. "You're right."

_SSSSHNK!_ A beam of luminescent blue burst from Richard's hand, and the four fugitives gaped as the exit was covered with a sheet of thick, nigh-impenetrable ice.

"There! All better!"

"Why did you do that?" Moka cried, turning back toward the warlock with everyone else. "We're trapped!"

"What? Was that your only viable escape route?" Richard asked, his eyebrows rising hopefully.

"Yes! Those Enforcer goons will be here any second!" Tsukune explained angrily.

"And do they intend to do you harm?" Richard asked, clasping his hands together in joy.

"YES! Who knows what kind of damage those idiots will cause?" Yukari shouted.

"Is there a chance that innocents might be caught in the crossfire?" Richard asked gleefully, rubbing his hands together as he practically bounced from foot to foot.

Nobody bothered to answer him this time, and Tsukune massaged his forehead as he grimaced. "Okay... we need a new plan."

"Hope that plan involves unconditional surrender, punk! Otherwise you're coming with us with a few new breathing holes stabbed in ya!"

As Richard backed away and many of the surrounding student body rushed out of the area or into the nearby classrooms for cover, Tsukune and the others were completely unsurprised to see the four Enforcers slowing to a walk as they turned the last corner.

"All right, enough messin' around!" shouted the tall, lanky goon as his form began to glow. "In the interest of keeping the peace, Enforcers are permitted to reveal their monster forms in order to exact justice! You're in for it now!"

As the light covered him entirely, the boy's head swelled up to absurd proportions, and bits of hay stuck out from his sleeves and from under his pants' legs. When it faded, his entire head had been replaced by a large pumpkin with a face cut into it, complete with two glowing lights in the eyes that leered out at its prey.

The boy with shaggy hair shifted more completely, falling over onto all fours as hair covered every inch of his body and great feathered wings burst out of his back. Bony spikes shout out of the sides of his head and curled into the shape of a ram's horns even as a crescent moon appeared on his forehead. After the light subsided, he resembled a strange white dog with ram's horns and wings.

The large Enforcer, who was panting from the effort of keeping up with the others, simply seemed to grow bigger, and his wrinkled skin morphed into tough bark as muscled limbs became thick, sturdy segments of tree trunks. His face grew more boxy and solid as it turned into what appeared to be a crude mouth and eyes carved into a block of wood, and a single leaf grew out of the back of his head like a ponytail.

The small Enforcer underwent the most radical transformation, his body seeming to collapse completely within a murky black fog and then assemble itself from glowing shards of matter. It was hard to make any sense of what little they could see of the process, but by the end of it the boy had clearly become some sort of man-sized dragon creature, or at least the skeletal remains of one. Twin red orbs shimmered brightly from within the creature's bleached skull, and short, useless bone wings stuck out from its spine.

"Enforcers..." started the pumpkin-headed lantern as twin daggers slid out of his sleeves, "ATTACK!"

* * *

"Hi everyone! It's that time again! And we have so much to do this time, too!" Miss Nekonome said cheerfully as she bounced happily to one side of a large chalkboard. "Today we're going to discuss Netherworld monsters!"

The nekomata pointed to a chalk drawing of Earth which had a large slash under it, which separated it from a large circle with a skull symbol in the middle.

"Netherworld creatures are somewhat rare in Youkai Academy! This is not because there's any shortage of them in general, but rather because they have their own world and don't have to co-exist with humans if they don't want to!" Shizuka said, nodding seriously. "Because the Netherworld is a separate dimension where only departed spirits and a few unlucky plot-centric humans end up, attitudes toward humans are very different there! Humans are considered more of a casual curiosity rather than a threat, and generally they find themselves treated just the same as the monsters! Of course, this still means they're quite likely to find themselves ripped apart and eaten, but only because of the natural order of the food chain rather than stubborn racism."

Shizuka tapped the picture of Earth. "The Netherworld monsters that end up on Earth are usually only the weakest individuals of their kind, or sometimes the family of a monster whose company ended up relocating him to Earth; Apple in particular seems to be moving a lot of their personnel from the dark, slimy hell-pits from which they spawned. In either case, the monsters end up having to assimilate like all the native creatures."

Miss Nekonome moved on to the next series of drawings, each of one vaguely resembling an Enforcer's monster form. "The pumpkin-headed kid is a lantern-type monster, which are known for their wizardry with knives. The skeleton is a zombie dragon, whose usual breath weapon has been replaced by a corrosive mist that weakens its victims. The flying dog is a holy dragon, mostly known for actually NOT being evil - it's really rare in the Netherworld - but also having several magical powers. And finally the wood guy is a tree golem, most well-known for NOT being able to run very fast. And... also I guess he's really strong or something. That doesn't really get a lot of street cred around here."

She shrugged. "Such monsters make excellent minion material, as they come from a world where haphazard violence and physical dominance is equivalent to the law. Most of them find even the small aspects of civilization in Earth's monster realm, such as a healthy respect for mortality and a wide selection of evil masters to choose from, a welcome boon from the chaotic drudgery of the Netherworld. And if they don't, who cares? Not me!"

Shizuka waved happily. "That's all for now! See you next time!"

* * *

"Wait... Wait you guys... haaah..." the tree golem gasped as he very nearly collapsed where he stood. "Out of... huff... breath... gimme a sec... huff... to photosynthesize a bit..."

"We're inside, numbnuts. There's no sunlight!" snapped the zombie dragon.

The lantern tsked as he flipped his switchblade around his fingers, the blade making wide silvery arcs in the air. "Whatever. Just park your wooden ass there and keep 'em from escaping, would ya?" the pumpkin-headed monster demanded. "And fer Laharl's sake, go jogging once in a while or something! I've seen zombies that can keep a sprint longer'n you!"

The holy dragon snorted as he floated above the ground, his great white wings flapping majestically. "I'm sorry that it had to come to this, but if you surrender, then I can promise you won't be harmed."

Tsukune grit his teeth as he glanced behind him, and noted that Kurumu and Yukari looked ready to fight. But even assuming that either of them were a match for any one of the Enforcers opposing them...

The human boy happened to glance over to where Richard was sitting on a fold-out chair with a small bag of popcorn - he had no idea how the warlock was eating, what with that cowl over his mouth, though - and suddenly he got an idea.

"All right. I guess we have no choice," Tsukune sighed, his shoulders slumping.

"What? We're giving up?" Kurumu asked, surprised. "But we didn't even do anything! Why should we have to go with them?"

"I know that they're supposed to be the law around here, but that doesn't give them the right to do something as dirty and underhanded as this!" Yukari growled.

Moka, as usual, seemed intent on calming conflict, and gently came in on Tsukune's side. "It's all right you guys; we don't have any options. We can't win, but I'm..." she seemed to hesitate, and her mouth twisted into a frown at the reluctance of her next words. "I'm... sure Ranma will come through for us."

The holy dragon breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that there would be no violence. "You're making a wise decision."

"So... there's not going to be a fight?" asked Richard, bits of popcorn falling from between his fingers as his hand froze on the way up to his mouth.

Tsukune shook his head with exaggerated regret. "No, I suppose not. We don't stand a chance against four of these guys. Against THREE, maybe, considering that the big one can barely move, but-"

The holy dragon's eyes widened as he saw the science teacher suddenly thrust a palm in his direction, eldritch energies being summoned from beyond the veil to wrap around the warlock's ancient fingers.

"Hey! Wait! Stop, I'm-"

_BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!_ A black beam of pure destruction manifest surged toward the holy dragon, and both the zombie dragon and the lantern leapt clear as their doomed companion's body was shadowed spectacularly before the mighty river of darkness.

"I NEVER GOT TO SEE PARIS!" the holy dragon cried before his body crumbled away, disintegrating into the air before the onslaught of power.

"Fantastic! Tsukune, you're a genius!" Kurumu gushed happily as her morale surged, and her wings and tail sprouted immediately in preparation for violence. "We have a fighting chance, now!"

Tsukune stared wide-eyed at the black streak on the floor which was all that remained of what was once a living, breathing, relatively intelligent creature. "I... I just got that person killed," he mumbled as the understanding at what he had just done overwhelmed him.

"I know! I hate to admit it, but I'm actually impressed, Aono!" Yukari shouted as she drew her wand and jabbed it at a supply closet. "You just might be fit to lick Ranma's shoes clean after all!"

At the gesture, the locker burst open and several brooms, mops, and buckets all flew through the air before plowing into the skeletal dragon, who had already gotten to his feet and was preparing to charge.

"Ow! Hey! Quit it!" the undead beast snarled as it swung its head left and right, trying to batter its way through the tools as it pushed forward.

"You think we'll let you get away with killing what's-his-face?" the lantern demanded as he flipped to his feet, hurling a knife at the shell-shocked Tsukune.

_Clang!_ Kurumu swatted the blade out of the air with her claws before she darted toward the pumpkin-headed fighter. "No, but I'm pretty sure Professor Richard will..." Another slash of her claws was deftly blocked by the lantern, although the knife-fighter hopped back warily to get some space.

"He's dead... because of me..." Tsukune mumbled, rubbing his head as his eyes stared into space. Moka gently took him by the shoulders and shook him a bit, but his body just wobbled back and forth like it was made of rubber.

_Clack!_ "Gah! Dammit!" the zombie dragon cursed as one of the brooms slipped between his ribs at an angle, wedging against his spine and sticking out right in the way of his leg. "You won't get away with that, brat!"

"Take a card! Any card!" Yukari said mockingly as she fanned out several large tarot cards in one hand before hurling them like shuriken toward her chosen opponent.

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ "Gwaaarugh!" a howl of pain came from the undead beast's dusty throat as the razor-edged projectiles struck his head, each one solidly embedding itself in the bone of his skull.

_Twang! Skritch!_ The lantern's switchblades lashed forward like lightning, but Kurumu's long, bladed nails parried every attack, her greater strength and speed allowing her to hold out against the Enforcer's weapons.

_Clangk!_ A particularly strong swipe managed to slice into the lantern's hand, and as he yelped and dropped one of his weapons, Kurumu lined up a kick straight between his legs.

_Shuff!_ The succubus blinked when her foot sunk rather deeply into the lantern's groin without meeting any hard resistance or eliciting the expected scream of agony.

"He was by far the most reasonable of the monsters, too," Tsukune droned, completely oblivious to Moka as she shook him harder.

The lantern's leering mouth grinned wider at Kurumu's expression of surprise. "Ha! When I'm in this form, my junk is just straw! You can't hurt me that way! Ha ha h-"

_SKRAK!_ The pumpkin-headed Enforcer screamed in agony as Kurumu slashed across his face, carving deep gouges into the gourd that substituted for his flesh.

As the lantern fell to the floor in a writhing heap, Kurumu turned to the other active enemy, who was still thrashing about wildly as cleaning equipment battered him from the air.

_SNAP!_ The zombie dragon snarled as the broom in his ribs finally broke apart and tumbled out of him, and then he crashed through the pail and broom that was blocking his way to Yukari, his eyes flaring a brilliant, angry red.

"Hee-yah!" Kurumu's wings flapped mightily as she intercepted the dragon with a flying kick, smashing the undead beast to the side and snapping off one of its clawed forearms from the impact.

"I know I didn't do it myself, but for me to..." Tsukune trailed off as his head swung to and fro painfully, and he finally turned his attention to Moka. "Moka, what is it? I'm trying to have an emotional breakdown, here!"

"Well, I really think we should be looking for another escape route," Moka insisted. "We need to get away, fast!"

Tsukune took a second to bury his guilt, and then glanced over to where Yukari had just managed to fit a large bucket onto the zombie dragon's head while Kurumu slashed and kicked wildly at the hapless pile of bones.

"Why? It looks like we're winning," Tsukune admitted, glancing over to where the lantern was twitching on the ground while teardrops leaked from its massive eye holes. "Actually, we've almost won already. What's the problem?"

Moka gulped and pointed further down the hall. "I think the tree-man finally caught his breath..."

Tsukune flinched as he turned away from the lantern, and he paled as he watched the massive wood golem approach, its features stern and angry.

"The term is tree-PERSON, you ignorant tramp! What is this, 1984?" the golem demanded as he stomped down the hall, his massive hands balled into fists the size of beach balls. "Although, since you asked, I **am** actually a male."

"We didn't ask!" Kurumu snapped as she dashed away from the zombie dragon and toward the new target, slashing wide for the golem's midsection.

Thanks to her speed the attack struck perfectly, but Kurumu was surprised as her nails barely managed to dig through the surface of the wood golem's bark-like skin, and then got stuck before she could draw them back.

"Hey! What gives?" the succubus complained as the wood golem seized her arm and hefted her up. "I've cut through trees easily before!"

"Yeah, the specimens out here are pretty weedy," the golem said conversationally as he pulled his free arm back.

_Whump!_ Kurumu gasped as the wind was driven out of her stomach from the golem's punch, and she quickly used her own free hand to slash at the arm holding her own.

The wood golem seemed to ignore the attack completely as he reared his fist back again. "The sunlight around here is so poor, ya know? I can't even go power-walking without running out of breath; it's no wonder the normal plant life is so brittle." He drove a second punch into his victim's stomach as he let go of her arm, sending the buxom temptress sailing across the length of the hall before she slammed into the maintenance locker that Yukari had emptied earlier.

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ The wood golem winced as he felt several of Yukari's razor-edged tarot cards embed themselves into his arm, and he turned slightly to regard the young witch as he flexed his fingers meaningfully.

"Ha! Gotcha!" Yukari cheered as she aimed her wand at the wooden giant, "I can see a chimney in your future, 'cause you're going up in smoke!"

_Fwoosh!_ The golem's eyes widened as the cards burst into flames, and he yelped as he waved his arms around to try and put out the fire.

Yukari looked victorious for a few seconds until she heard the sound of metal hitting the floor tiles, and she turned around just as the zombie dragon opened its jaws in her direction, now free of the bucket that had restrained it.

"Hhhhhaaaaaah..." black mist vomited forth from the dragon's bleached jaws, and Yukari coughed violently as she backed away from the nauseating cloud, eventually backing into a wall.

_Wsst! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ The young witch gulped as three daggers flew through the air and struck close to her arms and between her legs, pinning her sleeves and skirt to the wall behind her.

"You're lucky we need you little punks alive for the plan to work," the lantern snapped as he toyed with another knife in one hand while the other tenderly felt the deep scars in his face, "otherwise I'd chop ya into little bits and bones there would chew you into fertilizer!" then he jabbed a thumb at the wood golem, who was busy putting out his arm. "Which we would then feed to numbnuts over here to get him to shut up about the lack of selection in the cafeteria."

"I simply feel that there should be a sedimentary meal option, that's all," the golem complained as he reduced the flames to a few wisps of smoke at last. "Now let's hurry up and capture them; Haruo could return with Saotome at any moment."

"Well, that went south REAL quick," Tsukune mumbled under his breath as he and Moka stepped back fearfully. 'Gotta think... what tools do we have left?' Granted, all their enemies were injured and he was pretty sure that Kurumu would be good to fight some more once she shook off her dizziness from the last attack, but he still needed some way to stall them...

"Tsukune, what are we going to do?" Moka asked, gripping the human boy's shoulder tightly. "I don't think Ranma will get here in time..."

Suddenly Tsukune stood in front of Moka and spread his arms out, facing the lantern with a smirk on his face.

"Don't worry, Moka! That jackass-o-lantern can't hurt me! You know what kind of monster I am! The moment his knives touch me, he's done for!" the human said haughtily, using every shred of his will to keep his voice from cracking. 'PLEASE let them be stupid enough to fall for this now that the sensible one is gone...'

"Ah! Of... Of course! You have them now!" Moka said, stuttering only a bit at the rather desperate plan.

All three of the Enforcers stopped dead at the declaration, and the pumpkin-headed Enforcer recoiled. "Wh-What? Seriously? You're strong against knives? Damn it!"

The tree golem frowned as the zombie dragon came up behind him. "I don't even think that makes sense. I think he's bluffing."

"No, think about it!" the lantern said as he backed away from Tsukune fearfully. "You know how some fire elementals just get stronger when you hit them with a fire attack, right? I'll bet he's like that!"

A vein popped up on the zombie dragon's head. "Knives aren't an element, idiot!"

"Technically, neither is fire!" Yukari called out suddenly. "Fire is the resulting energy loss of a chemical reaction, not an element in and of itself!"

"You keep out of this, you little-" the undead dragon glanced over at Yukari, and it started in surprise as it saw Tsukune and Moka creeping closer to the witch to try and free her. "HEY! Stop them!"

"I can't! My knives will only heal him!" the lantern lamented, staring down at his dagger and switchblade with regret.

"Aw, for willow's sake..." the wood golem - which was too slow and too far away to stop the pair himself - suddenly grabbed the zombie dragon next to him and hefted it over his head. "Ancient Netherworld strategic technique! Ally toss!"

"Hey hey heyheyHEY!" the undead dragon yelped as he was suddenly thrown bodily down the hall, and he screamed as he smashed into pieces against Moka's back, who then crushed Tsukune into the wall next to Yukari.

The lantern winced before he looked up at the wood golem. "You do know that monsters can't use that technique, right? You just threw him like a missile."

"Oops. Sorry!" the plant creature shouted.

"When and if I regain some kind of mobility, I swear to Vishnu I'm gonna chew your roots off!" the zombie dragon's head snarled as it thrashed around helplessly right under Yukari.

"Ugh... whoa..." Tsukune groaned as he rolled over onto his back, seeing that Moka was stumbling to her feet. "Moka, are you okay?" he mumbled as his hand tightened around something cold and metallic.

Moka, for her part, looked absolutely shocked as she stared down at her chest. Tsukune couldn't imagine why, as she didn't seem to be injured.

"The... The rosario... it came... off..." Moka whispered, her body trembling slightly as her hair started to sway in some invisible wind.

Tsukune blinked, and then he realized that the rosario was what he currently clutched in his hand; he had tried to take Moka around the shoulders when she had crashed into him in order to stabilize them both, but had apparently ended up taking hold of the bejeweled accessory instead.

"Sorry about that Moka, but we can worry about your jewelry later!" Tsukune said as he pushed himself up off the ground. "We need to get Yuka-"

Suddenly a veritable explosion of power burst from Moka's body, and Tsukune was slammed back into the wall by the shock wave as a column of blinding light encompassed the vampiress.

"ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! Here, have the rosario back!" Tsukune said desperately, covering his face from the waves of force. "I'll fix it! I'll fix your collar! I swear! Just calm down!"

Alas, Tsukune's words were useless as power flooded into Moka, and the vampiress's stature grew slightly as her fangs lengthened and her hair shifted from a shining pink to a brilliant silver.

When the light finally abated, Moka - or at least, the vampiress standing where Moka had been just moments ago - calmly raised her arms and stretched, her mouth curling into a smile as her shoulders popped.

"Ahhh... it's been a while since I've been out," Moka said, her voice richer and deeper than before. "And just in time, too. I don't think I would have been able to live with the shame of actually being CAPTURED by these peons, even if it was my alter ego in control at the time."

The others simply stared in silence, each of them either gaping in shock or simply confused.

"Mo-Moka? Is that you, or did I hit my head when I fell?" Kurumu asked as she pulled herself to her feet.

"What happened? Moka?" Tsukune asked timidly as he too stood up. Then he glanced at the rosario in his hands. "Does this... have something to do with the rosario?"

"Well, it seems the bimbo is right; you ARE a genius," Moka deadpanned as she rolled her eyes, ignoring the indignant cry from Kurumu that followed.

Her eyes happened to rest on the dragon skull at Yukari's feet, and she nudged it over in front of her with her foot.

"I don't get it. What's with this new broad?" the wood golem asked, seemingly unimpressed with the earlier light show.

"Man, you are just all over the map with the political correctness, aren't you?" the lantern mumbled. "Anyway, I don't know why she just gained an inch of fang and a cup size, but as long as Saotome's still willing to risk his neck to save her, I don't care. Let's wrap 'em up, eh?"

Moka snorted, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "As if I would suffer that pigtailed nuisance to rescue me! And from the likes of YOU? LEARN YOUR PLACE!"

With a kick that came far too quickly for either of the still-active Enforcers to deal with, the new, angrier Moka sent the dragon skull flying through the air like a rocket.

_Wham!_ The lantern was flung backward as the sentient hunk of bone slammed into him, carrying him down the hall until he reached the corner and came to rest none-too-gently against the wall.

_CRACK!_ The wall splintered as the knife-user's body was crushed against it, and the pumpkin-headed Enforcer entered blissful unconsciousness as nearly every straw in his body broke.

_Thud!_ The skull fell onto the floor a moment later, largely unharmed.

"Wow. I never realized before, but you are REALLY soft in that form. I mean, like, PILLOW soft," the zombie dragon said to the obviously insensate thug.

The wood golem set his jaw as he turned back toward the vampiress. "So you're good at football. It'll take more than that to take me down, doll."

"Of course," Moka mumbled conversationally as she dashed forward, her form blurring from the sheer speed as she ducked into a low foot sweep that sent the golem flying onto his face. "You don't break wood with a ball."

Stepping up next to the struggling golem, she suddenly raised one leg up high into the air as she smirked viciously. "You use an ax."

_CRACK!_ The ax kick that followed caused the floor to shake as the tiles around the wood golem practically exploded from the force, and Tsukune flinched as the wooden Enforcer yelped in agony before slowly sinking into unconsciousness.

"Hmph. I'm a bit disappointed that they couldn't last longer than that, if they really gave you so much trouble," Moka said snidely as she stared down at the fallen golem.

"I know, right?" Richard said suddenly, coming up behind the vampiress. "I'll bet they hadn't even hit level ten yet. And NO ONE was killed in the crossfire!"

Moka slowly turned to face the warlock, her expression decidedly nonplussed.

"What?" Richard asked. "Is there some popcorn on my cowl?"

_THWACK!_ A lightning-fast roundhouse smashed the warlock's head right off of his shoulders, and Tsukune's eyes widened as it crashed through one of the high windows and went flying off into the distance outside.

Richard's body wobbled for a few seconds as Moka righted herself, and then its hands began moving in strange and deliberate patterns that - thankfully - did not end up summoning any harmful eldritch energies.

"What's wrong with him now?" Moka demanded, planting her hands on her hips as she glared at the beheaded wizard.

"That's, uh, sign language," Yukari explained as Tsukune freed her from the wall. "He says 'that was uncalled for'."

"I'd like to note that I disagree with that, actually," Kurumu said, though she was still eying this new Moka suspiciously.

Richard's body continued signing with its hands, and Yukari cleared her throat.

"Now he's saying that if you're going to be doing high kicks in a uniform skirt, then you should wear gym shorts or something. He got quite an eyeful before his eyes left with the rest of his sensory organs." Then Yukari's face turned serious. "And I'd like to note that I disagree with THAT."

"Not that it isn't great to see Professor Richard dismembered again," Tsukune said as he stepped in front of Yukari and Kurumu, "but don't you think you owe us an explanation, Moka?"

The vampiress raised an eyebrow. "Me? Owe YOU? I just saved your skins and you think to interrogate me?"

Tsukune gulped nervously, and he saw with some concern that Kurumu was edging closer to him in fear. Yukari didn't seem the least bit put off, though.

"Well, as happy as we are that this all worked out okay, where did Moka go?" Tsukune asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Where did you come from? What exactly happened?"

Moka cut him off with a loud snort. "You may question my... lesser self when she reasserts herself. As for me, I have one more thing I have to do here before I'm submerged once more."

Her lips stretched into a wide grin, her fangs gleaming. "Saotome comes. I've been waiting for this moment."

* * *

Ranma frowned deeply as he followed Chopper down the main path to the school building, wishing that the wrestler would hurry his pace a bit since they were in a rush.

"Look, can't you just point me in the right direction? I'll go on ahead and find him myself!" the martial artist asked, walking next to the giant.

Despite barely matching Ranma's walking speed, Chopper was jogging at a good clip himself, and cast the human an annoyed glance. "Hey, this is as fast as I go. I 'aint no sprinter."

"I noticed. Which is why I'd really prefer to go on ahead before that blockhead gets himself eaten," Ranma groused.

"Don't worry about it so much, man; when I left he didn't seem that worried about the huge bug at all," Chopper reassured the pigtailed boy. "Anyway, they mighta moved around a bit while fighting. If I don't take you to the right spot, then you could pass them right by without knowing."

Ranma groaned, but stopped arguing as he continued letting the troll lead him. "So there have really been attacks on students on this path? And nobody's done anything about it?"

Chopper shrugged. "Attacks on students aren't exactly big news around here. But I'm still kinda surprised you didn't hear anything about it. Don't you come to the school this way?"

"Usually I go with Tsukune, and he's been taking me across the sports field that last few days," Ranma mumbled. "I guess now I know why."

"Ah! Here we are! And just like I thought, they're not here," Chopper said as he turned off the path into a webbing-strewn clearing, planting his fists on his hips. "Couldn't have gone far. Well, unless the spider won and dragged the gargoyle off somewhere to eat him."

Ranma walked up to one of the webs, inspecting a fairly large, egg-shaped cocoon with suspicion.

Kicking a decently sharp rock up off the ground and catching it out of the air, he immediately went about sawing through the glistening threads.

Chopper walked up behind the pigtailed boy curiously, and he raised an eyebrow as more and more of the webbing fell away. "Wazzat? An egg?"

Ranma grimaced as he revealed a rather ornate, and rather huge egg lined with intricate gold designs across its pearly shell, making it look more like a massive antique stone carving rather than a vessel for a living thing.

He knew better though, and Ranma took a step back before he struck the vessel with a sharp kick.

_Crack!_ The shell promptly burst apart into pieces, and the two burly fighters watched as a small body rolled out of the egg and tumbled onto the ground, gasping desperately for air.

"What... HAH... I'm... HAH... I'm free?" Saffron asked, his eyes swirling dizzily as he swayed back and forth on his knees.

"Hey Saffron. You okay?" Ranma mumbled, obviously not very interested in the Phoenix king's health as he glanced around at the surrounding forestland.

"Yes, I... I believe so," Saffron mumbled as he stood up shakily. "How long have I been trapped there? It's been so long, I... I completely lost track of time."

Chopper shrugged. "Dunno. What day were you captured?"

Saffron looked up sharply. "I wasn't 'captured' dolt, I was EATEN. Several times. And then wrapped up so that I couldn't get free of my divine carapace."

"He means his egg," Ranma whispered to the larger boy, who nodded seriously.

"And then I was eaten again... oh, I think twice more before-"

Ranma suddenly interrupted the immortal phoenix by rapping the youth on the head lightly. "Yeah, okay, great, you're free. I don't suppose you saw or maybe heard some sort of fight going on around here, did you? I'm trying to find a gargoyle that was around here."

Saffron blinked, clearly surprised. "Wait... you didn't come here to rescue me?"

Ranma sweatdropped. "No. How would I even know you were gone?"

A cold breeze blew through the air as silence reigned for a few precious seconds.

'I forgot. Nobody would even care if I went missing around here,' Saffron thought, his face darkening as he slumped to his hands and knees.

"So, anyway, did you hear anything or didn't you? This could be important!" Ranma demanded, causing the Phoenix to flinch.

Still looking incredibly depressed, Saffron pointed deeper into the forest. "I believe I heard some pathetic screams for help coming from that direction," he said gloomily.

"Got it! Thanks!" Ranma said, dashing off immediately.

Chopper scratched his chin as he stared at the young phoenix moping on the ground in front of him. "So... ah... you gonna be okay, little guy?"

"I..." Saffron mumbled weakly as he pushed himself to his feet, his features still utterly downcast. "I will manage... somehow..."

"Great! Bye!" the troll said happily as he jogged off toward the school building, glad that he had finally been absolved of all responsibility and could at last get to class.

Saffron continued sulking silently as he trudged off toward his dorm room, utterly alone. "So this is the fabled 'high school experience'... truly it is every bit as wretched and agonizing as Kiima's television dramas made it seem..."

* * *

Ranma had little trouble finding Haruo after being pointed in the right direction.

Frankly, he had expected to hear the sounds of combat to guide him to the right place, or perhaps more shouts for help.

He didn't expect to pick up the sounds of desperate bawling being carried on the evening wind, but seeing how he was in a hurry, any lead worked for him. Within moments he had reached a small clearing surrounded by rock outcroppings, and his gaze settled on a gargoyle laying in the middle of it, sobbing pathetically while his useless wings twitched behind him.

"Well, this is a little embarrassing to see. I was expecting to have to rescue you, but... well..."

Haruo gasped at the sound of someone's voice, and he whirled around in surprise to face the newcomer. "Saotome! You came to save me!"

"No, I didn't," Ranma said immediately, smashing the Enforcer's sudden surge of hope, "I came to save my friends. But seeing how you seem to be the one that thinks they're in danger, I guess I'm going to have to keep you alive long enough to tell me, huh?"

"Yes! Yes! Keep me alive!" Haruo said desperately, standing up straight. "Now! Help me free my wings and then distract the enemy while I escape!"

_Whomp!_ The gargoyle yelped as Ranma landed on his head, bringing the Enforcer back to his knees.

"That's enough outta you," the martial artist quipped as he hopped onto solid ground, his eyes moving from rock formation to rock formation. "So it's hiding nearby, eh? This'll be tricky, then. I can't sense it at all, and spiders are damn patient; if it IS here, then it'll definitely get the jump on us."

"So what do you want to do?" Haruo grumbled as he stood up, rubbing the back of his head.

"Simple. I'll wait here while you make a break for it," Ranma said, moving into a fighting stance.

Haruo blinked. "But... isn't that pretty much what I suggested in the-"

"Hurry up and go! Move it!" Ranma demanded, his eyes hardening as the gargoyle jumped.

"All right, all right!" Haruo said, turning to dash away. "Your sacrifice will not be forgotten, Saotome!"

"Yeah, sure," Ranma said as he waited for movement around him. "I've observed a lot of spiders, so I know their reflexes; they don't let prey get away even when it's a good idea."

Haruo frowned as he thought over that information, running past the pile of granite rubble. "Wait, what do you mea-"

_Bwoom!_ Earth and rock burst into the air as the gigantic spider rose up out the rubble, two of its legs rising up before slamming into the gargoyle's back and pinning him painfully against the ground.

The massive arachnid turned its body to bring its fangs to bear on its fresh capture, but halted as the eyes on the side of its head picked up a flash of bright blue coming from the clearing.

"Mouko takabisha!" Even the creature's full-body jump was eerily silent as it leapt backward out of the path of the ki bolt, and the gigantic spider spread its legs in preparation for battle as it quickly reassessed its situation.

"So this is the boss spider, eh?" Ranma said as he lowered his smoldering arms. "Not too shabby."

"Urgh! Hurry up and squash it!" Haruo demanded from where he was slowly standing up; apparently being smashed to the ground had broken something.

"Nah." Ranma shook his head in disinterest, and he pointed to the spider as his eyes narrowed.

"Yo! Boss Spider!" he shouted. "Normally I'd be happy to take you down and teach you some manners! I've trained a lot of you fanged freaks, and you look like you'd be good for getting rid of big cats, or maybe carrying stuff if I need to move or something!"

Haruo sweatdropped. "Cats? What? What's he going on about?"

"But right now, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I can't waste time teaching you who the real boss is around here!" Ranma continued as the gigantic spider stood unmoving on the edge of the clearing. "So this time ONLY, I'm giving you the chance to leave before I kick your fat abdomen into line!"

Haruo gaped at the declaration as the martial artist faced off against the tremendous arachnoid, his hard blue eyes gazing unflinchingly into the shining black orbs of the spider's.

And then, to the Enforcer's utter shock, the gigantic spider scuttled backward into the forest, its massive legs carrying it into the sparse brush and over the occasional barriers of webbing that it itself had previously spun.

"How... How did you do that?" Haruo said weakly as he stared at the retreating form, although he lost sight of it within seconds.

"A real predator knows instinctively whether they're the hunter or the prey," Ranma said sagely, crossing his arms over his chest as he nodded.

"Wh... What? Seriously?" Haruo stuttered.

"Hell, I dunno. Maybe," Ranma admitted. "The important thing is that it's too scared of me to risk fighting right now. So! What's happening to Tsukune or the others?"

Being injured, grounded, humiliated, and having just been saved by his worst enemy, it took Haruo a surprising two seconds to once again assume a position of superiority.

"I'll have you know that your friends are completely at my mercy, Saotome!" the gargoyle growled, pointing a claw at the martial artist. "By now my minions have captured them, and will only release them if I command it! If you dare defend yourself from me now, those precious to you will all DIE!"

The Enforcer laughed as he raised a claw, his eyes mad with glee at the prospect of rending his hated enemy to bits.

_Thwock!_ His glee turned to pain as Ranma kicked him in the face, knocking the gargoyle back onto his rear.

"Ow! What the hell? Don't you even care about your friends' lives? You demon! Vile ogre!" Haruo complained as he rubbed his injured jaw.

Ranma rolled his eyes as the Enforcer continued hurling insults at him. "Yeah, whatever. Why the heck should I believe you? How do I know the others are in trouble if they're not even here? For all I know they escaped whatever stupid plan you had to catch 'em and are in class even as we speak."

Haruo growled as he stood up again. "Fine, if that's how it's going to be, I'll show you... do you hear that?"

Ranma glanced upward as he too heard a distant noise, like a scream from the sky that was rapidly coming closer.

"!" screamed Richard's head as it sailed through the air, flying into the forest and straight toward one of the web patches.

_Ba-yoing!_ The web stretched back as the warlock's head slammed into it, but the gummy threads proved strong enough to keep from breaking even as the entire web and the attached branches shook.

"Ptooey!" Richard spit out a piece of glass that had gotten stuck in his cowl, and his eyes glanced up at the two students in the clearing next to him. "Ah, Saotome. All ready for class today, I hope?"

Haruo gaped as Ranma just massaged his forehead. "Is that-"

"Yes," Ranma said.

Richard's head wiggled back and forth slightly. "Hm. Could you-"

"No," Ranma said, turning back to Haruo. "Ignore him. Look, take me to where your goons are, and if you actually DO have Tsukune and the others captured, then I'll think about your ridiculous terms."

"Hmph!" the gargoyle looked annoyed, but he quickly realized he didn't really have a choice. "Fine! If you're going to be... uh..." Haruo trailed off as Richard's head started chuckling. "What? Did I say something funny?"

The warlock's cowl curled slightly in imitation of a grin. "I know something you don't knoooooow!" Richard sang.

Ranma groaned in frustration as he went back to rubbing his head. "Aw, dammit..."

* * *

"So... are we just gonna wait here, or what?" Kurumu asked as she rubbed her shoulder, wincing at the bruises. "Homeroom's already started, you know."

Tsukune crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at Moka's back. "I'm not leaving until I get an explanation for this! I want to know what happened to Moka!"

"I don't see what it really matters," the succubus grumbled. "She said that she'd revert back to normal, right? So I say let's leave while she's still on our side. Who knows if that psycho will suddenly turn on us?"

Yukari shook her head. "I doubt that. It's clear that this... other Moka is at least operating with our Moka's memories, so I'm fairly certain she still recognizes us as... well, maybe not friends, but allies, at least."

Then the young witch frowned. "What concerns me is why she's waiting for Senpai. The thugs are already down, and it's not like she needed any help dispatching them. What does Senpai have to do with this?"

Richard's body made a series of hand signals.

Yukari sighed. "Professor Richard is asking if someone wouldn't mind dropping his popcorn into his open esophagus when Senpai gets here."

A vein popped up on Kurumu's head, and she picked up the warlock's popcorn bucket before dropping it upside-down over his neck.

Richard's body gave a thumbs-up even as popcorn spilled out over its chest and back, only annoying the succubus further.

"Hey! Tsukune! You all right?"

All attention shifted to the broken window up near the roof as Ranma - with Richard's head under his arm - and Haruo - with his wings finally cleaned of webbing - alighted on the window sill, poking their heads in.

"Wh-What? What is this?" Haruo asked, gaping as he surveyed the destruction. "My nameless minions! What have you done to them?"

"We do TOO have names, jackass!" growled the zombie dragon's skull from the ground where it had fallen. "Not our fault nobody seems to care..."

Haruo glanced down at the dismembered skeleton. "That's one... and there's the lantern... and the wood golem is in the crater behind the chick..." he looked back and forth across the hallway. "Hey, where's the goody-two-shoes? Did he refuse to do his duty because of his stupid ethics or something?"

"No, he's here," said Richard's head. "See that black mark on the floor?"

Richard's body pointed to a streak of soot that stretched at an angle through the hall and ended with a hole burnt into the wall separating the hall from one of the classrooms.

"Just so you know, it was in the interest of good sportsmanship!" the disembodied head insisted.

"Well... that's that, then," Ranma murmured before he tossed Richard's head like a basketball.

_Thoomp!_ The warlock's head dropped into a trash can.

"Hmm... clearly his skills are wasted on the fighting arts. That was at least a half-court shot," Richard said, his voice slightly muffled from being literally up to his eyeballs in garbage. "... Uh... little help?" Naturally, nobody moved to assist him.

Haruo shook his head in disbelief. "No, the plan was perfect! How could this have-" he stopped talking as he felt Ranma grab the back of his head. "Uh oh."

The martial artist hopped off of the window sill into the school building, and Haruo screamed in surprise and terror as he was pulled along as well.

He tried to spread his wings to slow the fall, but Ranma simply swung onto his back and then kicked down, sending the gargoyle plummeting to the hard tile below.

_WHAM!_ Ranma landed lightly as the Enforcer crumpled into an insensate heap behind him.

"Geez, it was all for nothing after all," the pigtailed boy grumbled as he walked up to his friends. "Hey, Kurumu, you all right? Looks like you took a beating, there. And Moka, did they get you with bleach or something? What's with the hair?"

Tsukune was about to try and explain the situation when Kurumu spoke first.

"Ranma, don't let her fool you! That's not Moka!" the succubus said, pointing at the vampiress.

Moka, who had said nothing and simply watched ever since Ranma had appeared, turned to arch an eyebrow at Kurumu's warning.

Ranma halted in his tracks, and he frowned as he took a closer look at the vampiress. He had initially assumed it was Moka just because he could see her fangs, and also because she "felt" very similar aura-wise, though this person's energy wasn't concentrated in a rosario. Now that he was observing her more closely, however, he realized that this was obviously a different person. The hair color, the fierce, glowing eyes, the haughty expression... even her face and body looked slightly different from Moka's, and he felt foolish for mistaking her for the timid vampiress.

"You're right, she does look different," Ranma said suspiciously.

"Not only that," Kurumu added, "in the fight we had just now, she actually HELPED!"

A vein popped up on Moka's head as Ranma recoiled.

"Wh-What? S-Seriously?" Ranma stuttered, taken aback and far more wary of the silver-haired girl. "All right, who the hell are you, and what'd you do with Moka?"

"Not that I entirely disagree with your assessment of my alter ego," Moka said blithely, "but your disrespect begins to annoy me."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Ranma admitted as he moved into a fighting stance. "So, how's this gonna go? You wanna talk, or do yo-" were the last words he managed to get out before a flying roundhouse kick struck him in the chest.

Tsukune gaped as his roommate was sent flying through the hall, taken completely by surprise, and then smashed into the wall next to the unconscious pumpkin-headed Enforcer. Several other students joined him, many of them poking their heads out of their classroom doors or gathering around the corner at the end of the hall to watch.

"Hmph. Learn your place, cretin!" Moka snapped as she lowered her leg, idly flipping her long hair over her shoulder.

"What the HELL was that about?" Tsukune demanded, stomping up behind Moka and reaching out to grab her by the shoulder. "Moka or not, what did Ranma do to-"

Just as he was about to touch her the human found his hand swatted away, and before he knew it he was staring into the girl's bright red eyes.

"Do not presume to touch me as you wish," Moka said imperiously.

"F-Fine," Tsukune stuttered, his heart thundering as he suddenly found himself thinking about how easily this person had decapitated Professor Richard, "but I still want to know why you did that to Ranma! He didn't deserve that!"

"He annoys me," Moka said simply, her lip curling into an aggravated sneer. "His barbaric demeanor, his pitiful egotism, his deplorable treatment of my other self... it was simply time he was properly disciplined, that's all."

"Disciplined? You could have killed him!" Tsukune shouted, trying to focus on his anger in order to ignore his fear. "You can't start beating people to a pulp because they ANNOY you!"

Moka rolled her eyes. "Perhaps my other self cares for your lectures, but you bore-" she stopped speaking as she felt someone tap her shoulder, and then turned her head in irritation to see who it was.

_Crack!_ "You're annoying!" Ranma shouted as he plowed a haymaker into the surprised vampire's jaw, twisting her head to the side and throwing her entire body to the floor.

"WHOA!" Tsukune shouted as Moka collapsed onto the ground at his feet, her long, silver hair spilling all about. "Ranma! Over the line!" he shouted desperately.

Ranma breathed heavily as one hand clutched his chest, feeling for rib fractures, and his teeth were red from where he had coughed up some blood. "What? This is the best way to knock her out quick, so we can figure out what to do with her."

"That's Moka's body you just slugged!" Tsukune protested.

"Yeah, and this is MY body she just kicked," Ranma countered. "Look, I'll apologize to the real Moka when..."

The pigtailed boy trailed off as the silver-haired vampiress calmly picked herself up off the floor, facing away from the two arguing humans.

"My, that was a surprise," Moka said almost conversationally as she stood up and scratched at her slightly dirty cheek. "I actually lost my balance. That was almost impressive."

Ranma's eyes hardened. "Still wanna give me a hard time about hitting her?" he mumbled to Tsukune, who gulped.

"It appears I have a stubborn student," Moka said as she placed a hand on her hip, staring at Ranma with pure disdain. "I'll have to teach you another lesson."

And then, launching herself forward in a blur of motion, the vampiress attacked.

"How did this happen?" Kurumu asked weakly as she backed into a wall, her and Yukari having been gradually separated from the main conflict.

"Huh. I see," Yukari mumbled as she thumbed through a thick book, being the only person that didn't seem to be emotionally distressed by the scene playing out in front of them. "A vampire is supposedly able to transfer all the energy of her magical aura into pure power, boosting her physical abilities far beyond that of other monsters. That's the reason why they're presumed to be the strongest monsters in the world."

"You don't say," Kurumu mumbled, wincing as she watched Moka smash a wall in with a kick while Ranma dodged out of the way.

"On the other hand, devils are able to transfer their magical auras into their limbs to strengthen them for attacks, or wreathe them in flames. Depending on the sub-class of devil, he almost certainly has an array of secondary abilities as well, such as a hypnotic gaze, venomous claws, or an elemental weapon. Senpai should be on relatively even ground with her!"

Kurumu wondered why Yukari almost seemed excited when she said this, but a more pressing curiosity demanded attention. "Uh... what do devils have to do with Ranma?"

"It's my current working theory as to his species," Yukari explained, watching with undisguised interest as Ranma ran up a wall and then kicked off of it to avoid a roundhouse that utterly demolished the sturdy barrier.

"Ah. And... what if he's not a devil after all?" Kurumu asked, looking worried.

"Oh, well, in that case he's almost certain to lose, and he'll probably even die," Yukari said, frowning. "But I'm sure he's a devil. Well, mostly sure. I'd estimate at least a sixty-five percent chance..."

_Crash!_ Kurumu winced as she watched the pigtailed boy go flying through a door and knock down a group of spectators. "Well, he's going to be a jelly soon if he doesn't do something..."

Ranma dropped low to the ground as Moka's leg flew over him, and then twisted around just in time to catch a back kick that tagged his shoulder, sending him hurtling across the floor.

He lightly tapped the ground mid-tumble to gain some altitude and then flipped back onto his feet, but immediately had to dive to the side again as a silver-haired meteor almost rammed a knee into his face.

To those that had fought or seen him fight before, the pigtailed boy seemed curiously silent as he dodged and defended, trying to minimize his damage as Moka pressed her assault relentlessly. No breath was wasted in taunts, and no attention was paid to the cheers and jeers of the other students who were watching the battle through doorways and the occasional hole that Moka had helpfully opened up for them.

Nobody had ever seen Moka fight before, and to say her abilities came as a surprise was a terrific understatement. Her long legs tore through the air with a speed that few of the spectators could track, and they struck with the force of wrecking balls. Ranma was being careful to avoid the attacks, focusing all his energy and attentions on defense, and there were none that could blame him; surely just one more of the devastating kicks would break him if it connected cleanly.

Though it hadn't even been a full minute, the hall was a scene of complete devastation. Walls were decorated with impact craters or had long, thick gashes torn through them, while many classrooms now sported multiple new hallway entrances. And while most of the students were careful enough to stay out of the path of the fighters while watching, there were several who were either too slow or too unlucky to get out of the way before being battered with shrapnel or bowled over by a shock wave, and their bodies laid comatose on the sidelines as the damage continued to spread.

Ranma dashed toward Moka as she whirled around, her long hair sweeping in front of her in the wind of her movement.

Within another blinked of the eye, her leg was lashing out toward her pigtailed opponent, and it was all Ranma could do to block the sudden strike on one arm.

Moka smiled as he grunted, and then she twisted her entire body in the air as her other leg shot toward Ranma's straining arms.

_Bwoom!_ The shock wave from the impact send cracks seeping through the floor tiles as Ranma slid backward away from the vampiress, his arms bloody, but holding solidly in an "X" in front of his chest. The force sent tremors throughout the walls and ceiling, and sparks rained down from the lights above as they flickered uncertainly, Moka's bright red eyes and fanged smile shining through the brief moments of darkness.

Moka giggled slightly as Ranma wobbled in place, obviously rattled, and she dropped her leg to the floor as she placed a hand on her hip. "Not so cocky this time, I see. Would you like to call it quits here?"

Ranma breathed heavily as he locked eyes with the vampiress. "'Scuse me? Quit? You want ME to quit?"

"Please! Please do!" Tsukune shouted, having rushed up the very moment his friends had stopped jumping around. "Both of you, knock it off! There's no POINT to any of this! Why are you even fighting?"

"We're fighting because Saotome is an idiot and needs to be taught his standing," Moka said, stretching her arms over her head and incidentally giving the male viewers quite a show as her cleavage tightened, "however, I've become bored, and I suppose there's no harm in letting him stay awake while he thinks on what he's learned."

Tsukune winced badly. "REALLY poor choice of words, Evil Moka!"

The vampiress turned toward him sharply, causing the human to jump. "**Evil** Moka? Is that how you just addressed me?"

She didn't seem exactly mad about it, but Tsukune still moved to placate immediately. "S-Sorry! It just slipped out! I meant... uh... Dark Moka? Violent Moka? Considerably Less Pacifistic Moka? What am I supposed to call you?"

The silver-haired girl snorted. "I am Moka. The TRUE Moka. Her inner self, confined with that rosario in order to make myself more..." her lip curled into a sneer, "approachable."

"It works!" Tsukune noted almost desperately. "It really, REALLY works!" He walked in-between Ranma and Moka, and then held the disconnected jewelry out to the vampiress. "Here! Here's the rosario back! So you can go back to be peaceful and approachable and... uh..."

Tsukune stopped talking as the rosario was plucked out of his hand from behind him, and his face darkened as he saw Ranma observing the bejeweled cross.

"Huh? So this is it, eh? This is like your weakness?" Ranma asked conversationally as he turned it over in his hand.

Moka stifled a laugh. "Weakness? The rosario? Surely even you cannot be that stupid. How would you presume to use it?"

"Ranma. PLEASE. I'm begging you. Don't do this," Tsukune whispered. Over the past several weeks of co-habitation, he had gotten a pretty good grasp of Ranma's personality and character, and he KNEW that this apparent calm was a front for the fury that the martial artist must have been feeling at having his pride stepped on so callously, and in front of an audience.

This... Inner Moka had obviously come with the intent to destroy his friend's ego and reputation more than his body, and Ranma would drive the latter to the brink of death before he sacrificed the former.

Walking past Tsukune, Ranma slipped the rosario into his pocket as he approached Moka. "Well, I probably have to attach it to your collar or something, but whatever. We'll have plenty of time to experiment while you're recovering on a slab in the nurse's office."

The surrounding students erupted in cheers and shouts of encouragement as they saw that the fight was about to continue, and Tsukune felt himself being tugged backward away from the impending chaos.

"Tsukune, get back!" Kurumu said as she pulled him away. "You tried to warn him, all right? Whatever happens to Ranma now isn't your fault!"

She herself didn't want to see Ranma get hurt, but she was also uncomfortably familiar with such scenarios, having grown up in the monster world. The strong preyed on the weak all the time, and fights between immovable egos were all too common. The pigtailed boy would be lucky if he managed to make a full recovery.

"What happens to Ranma?" Tsukune asked as he turned to face the succubus. "Are you serious? I mean, sure, I don't want him to get hurt anymore, but Moka's body is in serious danger, here!"

Kurumu blanched at that. "Moka? Your best friend is getting beaten to a pulp and you're worried about the girl who's mauling him?"

"You don't understand, Kurumu," Tsukune sighed weakly, "Ranma's not going to lose."

"I thought even **you** had more sense about you," Moka said lazily as she began to approach the martial artist in a slow, sensual walk. "But very well. If you really will not see reason until it breaks you..."

The vampire's body suddenly accelerated like a gunshot, smashing the tile to pieces underneath her before she flew toward Ranma with a kick that could rend steel. She knew he would probably dodge - he was infuriatingly good at that - but she also knew that her foe had already been pushed to the limit. Even with the short rest he had just been afforded, soon he would become too exhausted to avoid her attacks, and then she would teach the uppity human his place with a few swift kicks.

Then a funny thing happened.

_Thwack!_ Moka flinched in surprise as she felt a strike land on her shoulder, and her head whipped around just in time to see Ranma land on the floor behind her at the same time he leveled a backward kick into her side.

_Thwump!_ Ranma kicked into the vampiress and then threw himself to the ground, letting her leg pass over him before he bounced to his feet again, slamming a palm into the vampire's stomach.

Moka's eyes widened in surprise as she stumbled back from the attack, as she had been finishing her kick and was still balancing on one leg. She managed to keep standing, but a moment of hesitation left another opening that Ranma wasted no time in exploiting.

_WHAM!_ The martial artist's fist blurred as it smashed into Moka's solar plexus, hammering the same spot repeatedly before the vampire was thrown back from the force and sent sprawling across the length of the hall, bouncing painfully across the tile.

Ranma breathed heavily as he kept his pose, his arm trembling slightly from the sudden exertion. "I call that one the 'pork tenderizer'. Kind of an inside joke." Laughter and cheers erupted from the spectators, and a few students particularly pleased by the turnaround started to chant his name.

Moka clutched her stomach as she pushed herself to her feet, feeling her internals lurch painfully in protest. How the hell had Ranma managed that? He wasn't any faster than she was, or at least it didn't seem that way from their earlier exchange of blows.

Of course, most of his attacks weren't strong enough to stagger her or do any worthwhile damage, but the last hundred or so blows had nearly caused her to black out then and there, and even now pain was still coursing through her torso as she fought to gather her strength.

Ranma remained standing in front of her, just out of arm's reach, waiting.

The moment she could feel her legs properly again, Moka launched herself forward, lashing out with a roundhouse twice as powerful as the one that had decapitated Richard.

The kick swept in from the right.

Ranma's fist smashed into her left flank as the pigtailed boy twisted away from the attack, and then a snap kick to the back of Moka's head pitched the vampire forward.

Moka's other leg slashed through the air as she turned, but Ranma was already out of range, his ponytail whipping about in the wind from the whiffed attack.

"You can't escape from me forever!" the vampiress snarled as she bared her fangs.

"I only need to escape until you're laid out on the floor," Ranma taunted back, beckoning her forward. "Now hurry it up. I don't want to be late for class."

"What the hell is going on now?" Kurumu mumbled as she peeked around a bank of lockers at the battle. It was hard to hear what the fighters were saying to each other due to the chatter and jeers of the other spectators - there seemed to be more arriving all the time - but it was obvious that the tables had turned completely.

"I expected something like this," Tsukune said, chewing his lip nervously as he watched Moka get thrown heavily into a wall as she and Ranma moved further down the hall. "There's no way Ranma would just roll over and let her beat him like that."

"So do you know what happened?" Kurumu asked as Yukari pressed closer, also eager to hear.

Tsukune sighed. "Ranma talks a lot about fighting and martial arts, you know? So he told me that there are three key aspects to melee fighting: strength, agility, and technique. He also said that while a lot of monsters get plenty of the first and some of the second just for being monsters, most of them rely on those and don't develop their actual fighting skills."

Kurumu scratched her head in confusion, but Yukari snapped her fingers.

"Of course! Senpai was completely on the defensive the first round, gauging her attacks and analyzing them!" she said excitably. "Moreover, Evil Moka largely seems to utilize kicks with small variations in speed, arc, and power!"

The young witch paused to allow a wave of dust to pass by, courtesy of Moka knocking down another wall.

"By now Senpai surely has her attack patterns completely mapped! Even if she's stronger and faster than him, Senpai knows exactly where she's going to strike and where she'll be vulnerable! This match is practically his already!"

"Don't count on it, shorty!" Kouma suddenly shouted from behind Yukari, startling the others with his sudden appearance.

The hellhound snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Saotome may have the upper hand for now, but he's taking his injuries too lightly. He's probably got a few fractured ribs at least, and his arms have taken a lot of abuse blocking those ridiculously powerful kicks. I doubt he can manage that pork attack again. At this point it comes down to whether he still has the stamina to wear down a vampire."

Tsukune, Kurumu, and Yukari all stared speechlessly at the hellhound.

"Ah..." Tsukune was the first to break the silence, "don't you have class or something? Why are you here?"

"This is the biggest fight I've seen so far on campus; I wouldn't miss this for anything!" the bushy-browed monster said before cupping his hands around his mouth. "HEY! Silver chick! Get a clue! He's already smacked you the first dozen times you tried that move, what made you think one more time would do the job?"

"Why are you giving Evil Moka hints?" Kurumu asked. "Aren't you Ranma's partner?"

"Just because I'm his partner doesn't mean I don't want to see him taken down a peg," the hellhound reasoned as he pulled something large from his school jacket and started gnawing on what appeared to be a stunted femur. "And he'd probably be fine with only one arm, too."

Yukari stared for several seconds as Kouma continued chewing on his bleached treat. "Is that... part of that zombie dragon?"

"I didn't see any zombie dragon," the hellhound murmured around the bone in his mouth, "and if you don't believe that, then I invoke finders keepers."

_WHAM!_ Ranma seemed to move in slow motion as Moka's foot stabbed deep into a locker, and the vampiress grunted as his elbow found its way into her side.

Feeling a bit brash, Ranma pressed the attack as his foe fought to both keep her balance and pull her foot from the twisted metal, slamming punch after punch into the vampiress at full power to keep her off balance as long as possible.

_CLANG!_ In the end Moka simply tore the locker off of the wall with her foot as she kicked at him, and although Ranma backed away from the kick he was caught by surprise when the locker was sent flying as a result, slamming into his body and sending him and the metal hulk crashing into a drinking fountain on the other side of the hall.

"Gugh!" Ranma grunted painfully as he was sandwiched between the two boxes of metal, and he winced as the water pipe in the fountain shattered and promptly poured water right down onto his head.

"This could be bad," Tsukune mumbled as he watched a redheaded female Ranma kick the locker away before pulling herself back to her feet.

Reactions from the crowd were... mixed.

"Did Saotome just grow boobies?"

"Oh, HELL no! I'm out a thousand yen!"

"Shape shifter! Crap, he's a shape shifter!"

"Somebody get the bookie spreadsheet!"

"What a **fantastic** body!"

Kurumu raised an eyebrow when she realized that this last comment came from Yukari.

The young witch, for her part, stared for a few more seconds before glancing around at all the people around her. "Wait... why don't any of you seem surprised?"

"Seen it," Tsukune and Kurumu mumbled.

"Nothing about Saotome surprises me anymore," Kouma mumbled as he bit hard into the dragon femur, snapping it in two.

After a few seconds of Yukari fuming indignantly, a nearby locker suddenly opened as a girl largely unfamiliar to any of those present spilled out onto the floor in a daze.

"Ranma is... a girl?" Mizore asked, her head spinning.

'Well, this is just great,' Ranma thought as she hauled herself up, clearly the worse for wear. She mostly tuned out the responses to the sudden gender shift, turning her full focus onto the battle at hand; she had come way too far to lose because of embarrassment and indignity.

As she tried to clear her head and take stock of her injuries - a few pieces of metal had torn particularly badly, and had cut gashes into her back - she finally realized that Moka had not yet attacked.

'Is she getting her confidence back, or is she just stupid?' Ranma thought as she wiped the water from her face. 'I was wide open until now, and she just waits for me?'

Once her vision cleared fully, she was tempted to settle on the latter explanation. Moka was standing just a few meters away in her best impersonation of a proper combat stance, her eyes unusually focused and wary.

"Man, you must not wanna win at all," Ranma muttered as she walked away from the wreck, water dripping from her hair and clothes. Still seeing no indication of action from the vampiress, Ranma took a moment to wring out her pigtail, causing even more water to spill onto the floor and down her arms.

"Thanks for waiting; I'm ready for ya now," Ranma taunted, idly lashing an arm out to spray a bit of water into Moka's face.

The martial artist froze in disbelief as Moka leapt backward, retreating from the liquid as if it were hot acid.

"No way... there's no way..." Ranma murmured as she stared down at her wet hands. "Seriously? Water? You're afraid of water?"

Moka was obviously flustered as she stood up straight again, mindful that some of the spectators were booing now. "I... dislike it, yes. Are you ready to surrender now? You've taken quite a-"

The vampiress was cut off as her foe vaulted forward, and Moka broke from her earlier attack patterns to leap as far back as possible from the dripping redhead.

Exactly as Ranma had predicted.

Ranma followed Moka's desperate dodge, and she launched a haymaker toward the point where she knew Moka would land, slamming the vampire in the stomach.

_Bzrt!_ In addition to the physical force of the attack, an electric spark jumped from Ranma's knuckles as Moka lurched backward from the attack, stunned.

_Whack! Crack! Wham!_ Two punches were followed by a snap kick that saw Moka reeling, and as the vampiress staggered Ranma tore open his red Chinese shirt, exposing the damp white tank top underneath (much to the delight of the male monsters watching).

"This is definitely bad," Tsukune said weakly as she watched Ranma lash the sopping wet garment around his foe's arms, eliciting more grunts of pain and sparks of energy.

"Can't believe everyone knew Senpai could shape shift," Yukari murmured dejectedly.

"Why is it bad that he's winning, again?" Kurumu asked Tsukune. "I mean, a minute ago I was afraid he was going to die!"

"I know that he's been injured too, but this has to stop before someone gets crippled!" Tsukune said, clearly frustrated by his helplessness to halt the violence. "It's obvious that the water is harming Moka's body, right? What if it's doing permanent damage to her? None of us know how much danger she's in right now!"

"Only two devil varieties can shift... not across genders... stupid useless theories..." Yukari murmured dejectedly.

"So is Ranma a boy turning into a girl or a girl turning into a boy?" Mizore asked from where she was sitting on the floor under the others. As no one knew who she was or what she was doing here, she was largely ignored.

"This whole fight is pointless! I have to end this somehow!" Tsukune insisted, only to be pulled back by Kurumu.

"Oh no you don't!" Kurumu said, her eyes hardening. "Those two are out for blood! There's no way I'm letting you run out there to get killed!"

"Was it even a willful shift? If not the parameters for-" Yukari's latest dejected murmurs were interrupted when something tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked behind her to see Richard's body using sign language again.

The young witch sighed. "Professor Richard wants to know if anybody can go get his head out of the trash can so he can watch the fight; his body isn't sure which one it landed in. Also, you know, it lacks proper sensory organs."

Inspiration struck Tsukune like a slap in the face. "That's it! Professor Richard, this way!"

Kurumu, Yukari, and even Kouma stared in stunned silence as Tsukune took the beheaded warlock by the hand and rushed him back down the hall. None of them could fathom why even Tsukune would help the undead wizard, as the professor was significantly responsible for this mess in the first place.

"All right, here it is," Tsukune said as he rounded a corner, practically dragging the tall robed body behind him.

"Hey! Aono! Did you see my femur anywhere?" the zombie dragon asked the moment he caught sight of his former target. The battered form of the lantern - with its pumpkin head wrapped entirely in gauze save a single eye - was trying mostly in vain to assemble the undead creature's body from the assorted pieces, though he had managed to attach the skull to its spine.

Tsukune winced as he let go of Richard's hand, leaving the body to grope about uselessly in the middle of the hall. "I, uh, think a dog ate it," he said without any irony.

"WHAT? Why didn't you stop it?" the monster demanded angrily.

"Busy now!" the human responded, really in no mood to argue with enemies that had already been fully walloped. He approached the garbage can and then leaned over it, peering into Richard's hooded eyes.

"Hello, Professor," Tsukune said evenly. "I'm here to get you."

The warlock's head looked unimpressed. "And I suppose you'll want some kind of reward for that. Like cash. Or not dying a horrible, painful death for my amusement." After a few seconds, his expression changed to hopeful. "Will two thousand yen be enough?"

"I want a favor," Tsukune snapped, "and hopefully you can restrain yourself from killing me as a courtesy."

"Take, take, take. Kids today are so greedy," Richard grumbled as he rolled his eyes.

"Just be quiet and come with me, all right?" Tsukune demanded as he grabbed the head by its hood and hauled it up. "I just hope I'm in time..."

* * *

_Whump!_ Ranma spit out blood as a desperate back kick smashed into her stomach, tearing her free of the wet shirt that was wrapped around Moka's wrists.

The vampiress quickly pried the soaked garment off of her arms, her breath heaving as electric arcs and trails of smoke came from her hands.

_Splop!_ Once the shirt had been discarded, Moka turned her attention back to her opponent, and nearly fell over from whirling too fast.

Moka was sorely injured, as her exposure to water had left her far more vulnerable to Ranma's attacks and made the damage she'd taken nearly impossible to ignore.

On the other hand, Ranma was clearly on her last legs as well, holding her stance rigidly in the middle of the hall as blood seeped from her lip. The transgendered fighter was formidable, but Moka was an immortal vampire, and every blow she landed was the equal of twenty that the redhead managed against her.

As the crowd's jeering started up again, Moka fought her initial instinct to charge forward and attack and took a moment to think about her situation.

'She's mostly dry by now, so her blows won't hurt as much,' Moka thought, slowly sidestepping around the pigtailed girl to get between her and fountain. 'She'll probably go for the water again. If it's a contest of stamina, I can't lose.'

'She thinks I'm going for the water. Whatta rube,' Ranma thought as she wiped some blood off of her lips. 'Still, this is gonna be all-or-nothing. It would be a pain if this became a contest of stamina.'

Moka hesitated as she saw her opponent start to glow a luminescent blue, and after a moment she realized that Ranma was summoning her own aura. It was nothing like hers, as it represented unbridled will focused into physical power rather than the fantastic inborn energies of the vampires, but it gave her pause as she considered what tactic Ranma might be using.

All at once, the redheaded girl made a break for the gushing water leak where the drinking fountain used to be, and half an eye blink later Moka was on a collision course, her right leg slicing through the air with lethal intent.

Ranma wanted to say "sucker", but etiquette demanded she shout her attack's name instead as she thrust her arms forward. "Mouko takabisha!" Her momentum halted instantly from the recoil as a beach ball-sized sphere of power blasted forth from her palms, and where Moka's leg was supposed to strike flesh, it instead slashed into an orb of overwhelming force.

_WHAM!_ Moka cried out as the energies spilled around her leg and crashed into her, and she quickly leaned into the impact as she slid backward, her shoes splintering the tiles as she fought to stay standing. It was the worst possible way to absorb the attack, but to let herself be blown back would have landed her right into the broken water pipe and quickly ended this match entirely as Ranma had expected.

After a moment the pressure against her front relented, and Moka staggered forward painfully, almost falling flat on her face. She was battered, but still conscious.

"Gotcha!" Ranma shouted as she vaulted toward the vampire, knowing that she only had a few more good strikes left in her.

Moka fought against the dizziness and tried to focus in on Ranma as the martial artist approached, forcing her battered body to counter-attack. Her body moved sluggishly in response as it threw up a kick, completely devoid of the usual grace and speed of the vampire but hopefully enough to fend off her enemy.

_SKRRRRAK!_

Ranma's eyes widened and she skidded to a stop as large needles of ice suddenly stabbed upward from the floor in a wall between her and Moka.

Moka gaped at the sudden interference, her leg still raised for a high kick and incidentally giving a good chunk of the spectators a perfect view between her legs.

Those in the crowd that weren't busy leering or taking cell phone photos fell silent, their cheers dying in their throats at the sudden anticlimax.

"The hell? What's going on?" Ranma demanded as she turned to where the needles seemed to have come from.

She and Moka weren't at all surprised to see Richard's body standing at the far end of the icy stalagmite wall, but both were utterly stunned to see Tsukune standing next to it, frowning darkly as he held Richard's head under one arm.

"All right, pack it up guys," the younger human said firmly, "show's over. Ranma, would you please give Moka back her rosario?"

The pigtailed girl stuttered in disbelief. "B-But I was... she w-was about to-"

"Yes, Ranma, you were going to demolish her, I'm sure," Tsukune said with an uncharacteristic hint of steel in his voice, "and there's nothing wrong with you defending yourself like you have, but this fight ends NOW. You've proven yourself already and there's no reason why anyone has to end up in intensive care because of this stupid battle."

Tsukune turned toward Moka. "Evil Moka, put on the rosario when Ranma gives it to you."

Moka finally broke out of her shock, and her weary eyes hardened. "You think to tell me-"

She was cut off as a high-pitched whine filled the hallway, and her lips halted as cold blue power once again enveloped Richard's hands.

"I'm sorry, I think you're still under the assumption that you have some kind of control of the situation," Richard said as his body started juggling small ice crystals practically writhing with magic. "Let me explain clearly to you: do what shorty says or I use your cold, shattered flesh to cool drinks at my next tailgate party."

The warlock grinned under his cowl as Tsukune's eyebrow twitched. "You all should come! My bean dip is world-famous!"

"Thank you, Professor," Tsukune ground out, "but please let me do the talking." It was rather disconcerting how the warlock instructor could be so blatantly malevolent one moment and so cheerfully helpful the next... although there was a great deal of consistency in the level of violence.

"Evil Moka, I understand that Ranma can be hard to deal with, but the way you treated him was way out of line," Tsukune said firmly to the fuming vampiress. "I know you have your pride as well, but being stronger than someone else doesn't give you the right to hurt them!"

Richard's head raised an eyebrow, clearly confused. "Wait... what? Really?" Everyone ignored him.

Ranma and Moka continued to stare in shock at the sudden backbone displayed by one of the most oft-victimized students in the school, and after several seconds, they finally locked gazes again between the teeth of the ice wall.

"Well... okay then. I was going to win, though," Ranma mumbled as she pulled the rosario from her pocket and tossed it over the ice.

Moka snatched it out of the air, her eyes glowing with malice. "This isn't over, Saotome. You will answer for this humiliation."

Ranma idly wondered whether she meant the humiliation of being almost beaten or the humiliation of being dressed down by a harmless human, but decided not to voice such thoughts so long as she was within Richard's arc of fire. "Whatever. I think I'll go take a nap now."

Passing by Tsukune and Richard, the pigtailed girl stopped to glare at the warlock's head, still being carried underneath Tsukune's arm. "By the way, you were trying to hit me with that icicle wall, weren't you?"

"Ooh, you noticed!" Richard replied happily. "It's really hard to aim from this vantage point, you see. I was afraid you were going to think I missed on purpose for the sake of this stupid truce!"

Tsukune wordlessly held up Richard's head to his roommate, who promptly smashed a fist into the warlock's nose.

"Thanks," Ranma mumbled as Tsukune lowered Richard's injured head. "Prof, I won't be in class today. Gotta go pick the metal shards out of my back."

By the time Tsukune turned his attention to Moka again, he found that the vampiress had reverted to her former pink-haired form, and was currently sitting on the floor and breathing heavily as her body trembled in pain.

"Moka! Are you all right?" Tsukune asked as he shoved Richard's head into the arms of his body.

The less aggressive Moka fingered the rosario once more around her neck even as she gasped for breath. "I... I remember everything," she whispered as Tsukune helped her to her feet, her face paling at the memory of the fierce and entirely pointless fight. "Tsukune, I'm... I'm so sorry. I should have told you..."

"It's all right, Moka," the human said reassuringly as he helped the limping vampiress through the hall, "you can tell me all about it later. For now, let's get you to Miss Madaraki."

Moka nodded silently, squeezing her eyes closed as she felt hot agony shoot through her body with every step. 'I can't believe it actually came to this... my inner self really fought Ranma? And lost?'

_'WHOA, I didn't lose,'_ said a sudden voice that echoed within her head, yet seemed to emanate from the rosario.

Moka jolted at the sudden statement, and glanced at Tsukune for any sign that he had heard it too.

The human simply glanced at her in concern. "Is something wrong? Do you want me to carry you?'

Moka blushed despite her concerns for the voice in her head. "N-No thank you! It's enough that you stopped the fight! Someone could have been seriously hurt!"

_'Like the pigtailed brat,'_ growled the inner voice, and Moka had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she figured out who was speaking to her in her head. _'I can't believe this little insect of a human actually had the nerve to cut in like that! When did he grow a spine?'_

'This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening,' Moka repeated to herself as she trudged along with Tsukune, a cold sweat breaking out over her brow.

_'Next time it'll be different! I'm gonna kill that arrogant pigtailed bastard!'_

Moka felt a tear stream down her cheek. It looked like her first semester was going to be a lot more complicated than she had hoped.

* * *

Notes: And more OCs rush to the fore... oh well, at least I resisted the urge to give them names or develop their personalities too far.

End Chapter 7

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"My Lord Kuyo, one of the faculty requests your attention."

Within a large, exquisitely furnished room perched high among the central offices of Youkai Academy, a young man with long white hair and narrow, piercing eyes looked up from where he was perusing some papers. He was wearing an immaculately pressed Enforcer's uniform, and his wide forehead, devoid of bangs, sported a pair of dark spots over his eyebrows.

This man was Kuyo, leader of the Enforcers and the self-fashioned tyrant of Youkai Academy. Among the students, his will was the law, and aside from the Headmaster himself, he possessed the most power and absolute authority of anyone at the monstrous institute. With incredible personal power and a small army of utterly loyal monsters at his beck and call, Kuyo had most of the academy in the palm of his hand, and there were few indeed that would dare challenge him.

Well, there were few among the students, anyway. He was patently aware that some of the teaching staff possessed powers far beyond the mere children they taught, and that such individuals reacted poorly to his heavy-handed and entirely self-serving methods of enforcing "peace".

It was with this consideration in mind that he sighed and gave his full attention to Keito as she stood at attention before his desk. "And which member of our esteemed faculty seeks an audience without an appointment?"

"The Dark Liege, Lord Kuyo," Keito said with a hint of distaste in her voice.

Kuyo gave a disgusted grunt. She was definitely not one of the teachers he could ignore. "Inform her that she may meet with me immediately."

The leader of the Enforcers pushed aside his paperwork and steepled his fingers in front of his nose as Keito exited the room.

A few seconds later Keito re-entered the office with the familiar form of the buxom blond triclops behind her.

"Dark Liege! What a pleasant surprise to see you!" Kuyo said amiably, his lips curling into a slight smile. "How may this humble servant assist you today?"

The Dark Liege sniffed as she crossed her arms under her breasts, well aware that any display of humility and servitude was a deception on Kuyo's part.

She, like almost all the staff, were well aware of Kuyo's abuses and his ongoing failure to enforce any rules that he didn't personally care about. The Enforcers as an organization did just enough to prevent Youkai Academy from falling into complete pandemonium, and then spent the rest of their time and effort taking advantage of their authority and power.

Still, she was also aware that Kuyo could be intimidated by a sufficiently powerful plaintiff into actually doing his job, and she didn't have many other options.

"I have a problem," the Dark Liege grumbled as she twirled a lock of hair about with her finger, "and it concerns a breach of school rules, in which you and your cronies are ultimately responsible."

Kuyo nodded calmly. "Indeed. Please, tell me what happened."

"The other week several items quite valuable to me went missing from my desk," the buxom demon admitted, sighing. "They were several jewels of considerable commercial value, and much, MUCH greater personal value to me. I have reason to believe they were stolen."

"Unacceptable," Kuyo hissed, gritting his teeth as his eyes narrowed. "That the scum of this institution would steal from you is not only a crime against you, but an affront to me as the keeper of law and order of this place. This will not stand."

"I'm sure," the Dark Liege deadpanned.

"But I must ask: why have you waited until now to bring this incident to my attention?" Kuyo asked, his brow furrowing. "Surely you realize that it will be far more difficult to find your items after so much time."

The Dark Liege snorted. He was right, of course, but mostly the white-haired Enforcer was trying to leave himself an excuse for failure if and when he gave up on searching. Still, any effort to help her would have been useful...

"I didn't come to you until now because your committee has a reputation for laxity and incompetence," she spat, her hands on her hips, "but I've reached the point where any help is better than no help."

Keito seemed irritated at the insult from where she was standing at attention near the door, but Kuyo chuckled at the teacher's criticism. "I assure you, such a reputation is undeserved by my fine subordinates and colleagues. Our detractors refuse to trust us or accept our authority, and then accuse us of failure when their own fear and paranoia prevent us from helping them."

"Naturally," the blonde drawled. "In any case, I did not come here to debate the qualities and shortcomings of your committee. I wish for you to formally investigate the theft."

Kuyo pursed his lips. "Investigate?"

The Dark Liege nodded. "Yes."

"Investigate. Hm." Kuyo leaned back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. "Investigate. Investigate."

The demonic teacher blinked. "Is... something the matter?"

"Invest... igate... Investigate," Kuyo mumbled before turning his attention back to the demon. "What an odd word. Whatever does it mean?"

The Dark Liege almost fell over in stunned disbelief. "Wh-What? Are you serious?"

Kuyo raised a hand to forestall further conversation. "Never mind, I will see to it myself. Keito!"

"Lord Kuyo?" Keito said, stepping forward with her back ramrod straight.

"Fetch the dictionary at once!" Kuyo commanded before steepling his fingers once more.

The senior Enforcer nodded as she walked over to a book case that covered one entire wall of the large, luxurious office, and she began searching through the considerable library row by row.

"Hmmm... it's not in the usual place," she murmured irritably.

"Well, it couldn't have gone far," Kuyo said as he leaned back into his chair. "We were just using it yesterday, weren't we? When that fellow came in to complain about a giant wild beast or something stalking the dorms."

Kuyo frowned and he fingered his chin. "What was the word he had us look up again? It was another 'in' word..."

"I believe it was 'integrity,' my lord," Keito said as she reached the end of the case. "Ah! Here it is!"

Kuyo smiled as his subordinate handed him the thick reference book. "Yes, that was it! Apparently it means 'soundness of moral character' or 'honesty'. What a surprise that was!"

The leader of the Enforcers opened the book and was just starting to flip to the "I" section when he realized that the Dark Liege had turned around and was slowly walking toward the door. "My Dark Liege? Is something the matter? I assure you, as soon as I find the definition I'll proceed to... do... that thing..."

"Investigate," Keito reminded her boss.

"Yes! That! We'll begin to investigate immediately! As soon as I figure out what that is."

The Dark Liege didn't stop, and she massaged her temples with one hand as her other hand opened the door. "No, that's... quite all right," she mumbled irritably as she walked out. "I think I'll go back to hoping that they'll spontaneously turn up on their own, thank you. I won't waste any more of your time."

Kuyo and Keito glanced at each other in confusion as the teacher walked out and shut the door behind her.

"What was HER problem?" Keito snapped. "Like we can be expected to learn every stupid word in the human's language that they make us speak here."

Kuyo shrugged as he flipped through the dictionary. "Ah well. Less problems for us if she decides to deal with it on her own. Ah! Here's the word. Investigate: to search out and examine the particulars of in an attempt to learn the facts about something hidden, unique, or complex, especially in an attempt to find a motive, cause, or culprit."

"Ohhhh... so THAT'S what she wanted," Keito said, leaning over her superior's shoulder before she glanced down at him. "We don't do that, do we?"

"Nope," Kuyo said, tossing the dictionary over his shoulder before he put his feet up on the desk. "I see no reason to interrupt another peaceful day at Youkai Academy by having my subordinates scurrying around and disrupting our hard-working student population."

_Rrrrrumble..._

Kuyo glanced over at Keito. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes, I did. I FELT that..." Keito mumbled, glancing at a glass of water and noting that the liquid was rippling from the tremor. "It almost sounded like part of the building was being knocked down in the halls."

"Yes, I thought so too..." Kuyo mumbled.

And then he picked up the piece of paper he had been perusing before the Dark Liege had demanded an audience, and went back to reading it. "I wonder what it was... oh well." 


	9. Turnabout is Literally a Bitch

"Hello again! It's time for Meet the Teachers!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly, waving her hand.

"Today we're going to meet one of the more mysterious of our staff here at Youkai Academy: Miss Fran Madaraki!"

Standing next to the nekomata was the aforementioned school nurse, a slightly vacant expression on her face.

"So! Miss Madaraki! I hear you're actually the daughter of a famous scientist!" Shizuka said, moving closer to the blonde.

Fran nodded fondly. "Yes, I am, more or less. Doctor Naomitsu Madaraki is a genius, called the Devil of Biology. I was created to replicate his work as best as possible."

She lowered her head in a show of modesty. "Although my talents are less than inadequate in comparison to Doctor Madaraki, I still hope to use my limited expertise to help those in need."

Shizuka patted the blonde on the back roughly. "Don't be like that! I hear that the students are very happy with your work!"

Fran nodded. "That is true. The students here don't seem as..." she trailed off as she searched for the right word. "... picky... as my previous patients. I've logged far fewer complaints since I begin working here."

"And why did you come here in the first place?" Shizuka asked curiously. "You're not really a monster, even if you're not quite human, right? You were living fine amongst the humans, so why the switch?"

"Monster anatomy is a field which is grievously under-explored the world over," Fran explained dutifully, smiling. "This is in part because the human population mostly doesn't know that monsters exist, and in part because monsters couldn't pass a biology exam to save their lives."

Fran was silent for a moment. "Literally. I heard that Professor Richard administers those exams."

As Shizuka sweatdropped, the school nurse continued. "It is my hope that while I am helping those in need here, I come across secrets of monster biology that can be used to further medical science in the human world, such as an organ that is universally transplantable, or a regenerative agent that can be safely applied to human tissue."

Shizuka nodded. "I see. Very admirable! Have you had much success?"

Fran considered the question. "The work here keeps me rather busy, so I have only limited time for proper research. However, I have managed to collect numerous samples for eventual study."

"Samples?" Shizuka asked, blinking in confusion.

Fran shrugged. "Not as many as I would like. Professor Richard can be quite thorough when he wants to be."

Shizuka's face slowly paled. "Okay, we are definitely NOT having that psycho on this segment," she mumbled.

"It's just as well; I doubt that a nekomata would have any organs of particular interest," Fran mumbled as the homeroom teacher twitched.

"Y-Yeah... until next time..."

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents

a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Well, the responses from the last chapter were encouraging. I actually have more complaints about Tsukune acting too assertively than I do that Moka nearly got her ass handed to her.

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_

Big Human on Campus

Chapter 8

Turnabout is Literally a Bitch

hr

The nurse's office was busy again.

It was a common enough occurrence at Youkai Academy that it didn't even bother Tsukune anymore, even though he was usually sensitive to such things; after almost any event of note, be it a major classroom brawl or a school-sponsored rally, injured students poured into Youkai's medical facilities by the dozens with a wide variety of maladies ranging from smoke inhalation or frostbite to dismemberment or hyper-accelerated aging... sometimes all in the same patient.

Tsukune personally thought it was terribly unfair to Fran Madaraki, no matter how many of the golem-like assistants she had on call (which was another uncomfortable mystery: did the strange, hulking nurses have a dormitory, or were they put into storage like common appliances?).

If Fran herself agreed, however, she sure didn't show it. The sprightly blonde seemed unusually animated by all the activity, rushing back and forth across the office while listing orders for her assistants. He supposed it was the only time she really seemed animated; most times she seemed rather placid and lethargic, but at times of emergency something seemed to spring to life within her, lending her energy to match the monstrous requirements of her job.

It might also have lent her two extra pairs of arms. Tsukune wasn't sure whether the new appendages were some manifestation of her monster form or what, and he consciously determined not to think about it as he waited impatiently by Kurumu's bedside.

"All right, Miss Kurono, I think that should just about do it," Fran mumbled as her lower sets of arms poked and massaged Kurumu's back while her upper-most set wrote furiously on a clip board and occupied most of the blonde's attention. "Let me know if you feel any sharp pain."

Kurumu grunted at the attentions, but said nothing as Fran worked some numbing agents into her back. She had been stripped down to bra to let the nurse do her work, and was both surprised and annoyed that Tsukune had barely noticed; on the one hand, sure, she wanted Tsukune to see her topless as often as she could get away with, but on the other it was clear that her beloved's mind was elsewhere at the moment.

Also, the nurse probably should have had something to say about it, too.

"Good, it seems like the treatment is working," Fran said before checking off something on the clipboard. "It's been quite some time since I've had so many cases of blunt trauma at once."

Then the stitch-covered blonde turned toward Tsukune. "By the way, is Saotome here as well? I had heard he suffered considerable damage during the incident."

Tsukune shook his head. "Ranma left to rest, I think." After a moment, he added, "I guess he likes to deal with it on his own when he can get away with it."

Fran frowned. "That's not good. Accumulating injuries without having them properly treated and corrected can lead to long-term complications. Please make sure he comes to get checked out at his earliest convenience."

"R-Right. I'll mention that to him," Tsukune said pensively. "How is Moka doing?"

Fran's upper arm that was holding the clip board quickly thumbed a few pages back. "Ah, Miss Akashiya. The contusions were severe, and she had a torn ligament, as well as numerous fractures..." then the nurse smiled. "However, given that Miss Akashiya is a vampire, I simply gave her a blood pack and let her rest. She'll be good as new very soon."

Kurumu raised an eyebrow. "You gave Moka a blood transfusion?"

"No, I said I gave her a blood pack," Fran corrected.

The succubus sweatdropped. "Ah. I see."

Tsukune looked surprised. "Wait, so she just needs to drink some blood?"

"Vampires benefit from a much better rate of biological respiration than most creatures," Fran explained as she continued perusing the notes. "A well-fed vampire can suffer nominally critical injuries and recover in hours. The only matter of concern is that their unique metabolism requires a great deal of blood plasma to compensate for the intense energy drain of enhanced regeneration."

Kurumu and Tsukune shared a confused glance, being unable to make any sense of that explanation.

"So, what you're saying is that Moka will get better if she drinks more blood, right?" Tsukune asked. "If that's the case, then I can don-"

"No," Fran said firmly, suddenly turning away from her notes to give Tsukune a stare that stopped him dead. "I am well aware of Miss Akashiya's consumption habits, and it is extremely unhealthy. Anemia is nothing to be taken lightly, Mister Aono. Although I have no right to impede your personal decisions outside of this office, as the school nurse I have a responsibility to discourage explicitly unhealthy behavior. As long as I am responsible for Miss Akashiya I will not allow her to feed upon other students."

Tsukune winced. "W-Well, I mean, if it was an emergency..."

"Lunch can't ALWAYS be an emergency," Kurumu said evenly as she put on her shirt.

"So when do you think she'll be released?" Tsukune said, trying to ignore Kurumu's jibes.

"I'd like to keep her for at least the rest of the day, so she'll miss her classes and club activities," Fran mumbled. "But if possible I want to see Miss Akashiya on her feet and out of bed by this afternoon. The beds are already full from the battle, and I expect more patients as the day goes on."

"Why is that?" Tsukune asked, scratching his head.

"Conflict breeds conflict," Fran said dispassionately. "After seeing a major combat, many of the students feel energized and restless, and often find it harder to restrain themselves. In addition, because the participants of the initial conflict are rarely chastised or punished for their breach of school rules, it reinforces the assumption that violent conduct is a legitimate form of conflict resolution."

Tsukune frowned. "Speaking of which, weren't those four monsters in the black jackets Enforcers? How can the school let the protection committee abuse their power and totally neglect their duties?"

Fran shrugged. "I know very little about it myself, save what I've heard injured students complaining about. From what I can tell, they tend to enforce mundane rules and victimless crimes, but shy away from stopping fights or punishing violent crimes. The general consensus seems to be that the Enforcers want to avoid open challenges to their authority. I can't guess why the headmaster tolerates their activities."

The nurse glanced at her clipboard, filled out a few lines, and then bowed to Kurumu. "If there will be nothing else, I have other patients to attend to."

Before Tsukune could say anything, Kurumu quickly asked, "Is Moka in good enough shape to see us right now?"

Fran nodded and pointed with her lower right hand toward a room near the back of the office, next to a woman who was wrapped up from head to toe in gauze like a mummy (strangely enough, Tsukune got the distinct impression that the woman was part of the nurse staff, not a patient). "She's right there. If you'll excuse me..."

hr

Moka flinched as the curtain in front of her room slid to the side, and she slowly turned her head to the side as Tsukune and Kurumu walked in silently.

Although the crushing agony of her earlier injuries had receded to a weak, dull ache, she still tried to avoid sharp movements as Fran had recommended.

"Oh! Kurumu, Tsukune! Hi!" She said cheerfully, smiling.

"Hi Moka!" Kurumu said cheerfully back before Tsukune could say anything to defuse the tension in the room. "I'm glad to see you're all right! Now you can tell us what the HELL happened to you this morning!"

Moka flinched again, and her smile dimmed considerably. "Ah. Well... that's... complicated."

"Well, we've all been excused from classes, so please, educate us," the succubus said sharply, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Kurumu, please, calm down," Tsukune asked, wincing. "Whatever happened back there-"

"What HAPPENED back there was that a good friend of ours got sucker-punched, humiliated in front of half the school, and then was nearly beaten to a bloody pulp!" Kurumu said heatedly, all traces of good humor evaporating. "And for what? Because he annoys you? Ranma's never laid a hand on you! What did he do to deserve that?"

Moka briefly considered bringing up her first meeting with the pigtailed boy, where he had seemed ready to punch a stake through her in Tsukune's defense, but relented. If it was for Tsukune's sake, Kurumu probably would have done worse in his place, anyway.

"I know, you're right," Moka said wearily, dropping her eyes to her lap. "There's not too much I can say about it, actually. The... 'other Moka' you saw is my... well, I guess you could say she's my true self. Or perhaps my... first self."

The vampiress clutched her Rosario tightly in her hands. "My true personality and power was sealed with the Rosario Without it, I become... well..."

"Egotistical, violent, and psychotic?" Kurumu deadpanned.

_'Better than being useless and timid.'_ Came a snide response from within Moka's head. _'Perhaps Saotome isn't the only insect I should squish next time I emerge.'_

Moka winced badly, and Tsukune immediately moved in front of Kurumu.

"Are you really okay? We can talk about this later if-"

"NO, Tsukune!" Kurumu interrupted, grabbing the human boy and yanking him back. "We're not going to slide this under the rug! Don't you feel bad at all for Ranma getting beaten black and blue for no reason?"

Tsukune glanced at Moka, laying quietly in the medical cot while wrapped in bandages and looking ashamed and subdued. Then he thought back to the end of Ranma's fight with Evil Moka, and the way the pigtailed girl had brushed off the encounter by declaring she would have won before leaving to take a nap.

"Well... sure. I feel... bad for Ranma," Tsukune hedged, "but I don't want to take it out on the real Moka."

Moka felt a twinge in her heart at hearing Tsukune describe her as being "real".

_'Was that idiot not listening at all? I'm the real Moka!'_

Kurumu turned back to the vampiress. "So why was your power sealed, why does it turn you into a completely different person, and WHY didn't you tell any of us this before? Did you really think the Rosario would never happen to come off?"

Moka shook her head. "It doesn't come off. Or at least, it's not supposed to. Something... happened when Tsukune touched it." She chewed her lip pensively. "As for why I didn't tell you guys, I..."

She frowned as she considered the question carefully. "I don't know. I don't really try to hide it, normally. But..."

Moka suddenly looked up. "Ranma."

Tsukune glanced behind him, and looked confused when he saw that the other human wasn't present. "Eh? What about him?"

"Ranma... puts me on edge, a bit," Moka mumbled.

"Ranma IS good at pissing people off, it's true," Kurumu admitted, "though that doesn't justify attacking him out of nowhere."

"That's not what I'm saying," Moka groused as she turned her gaze away. "But Ranma... I didn't want him to know about me," she admitted. "I've never really thought hard about it before, but Ranma... scares me. If he thought I was dangerous, I wouldn't be able to defend myself against him."

_Clang!_ The sound of a fist striking metal caused the vampiress to jerk her head around, the words already forming on her lips to defend herself from Kurumu's accusations.

Those words died when she realized that it was Tsukune, not Kurumu, who had slammed a fist into the metal table beside her cot.

"Is that really how you look at Ranma?" Tsukune demanded, his fist clenched tight despite the fact that it probably hurt quite a bit from the impact. "Even after this, you still won't trust him?"

Moka recoiled, honestly shocked. She had never seen Tsukune so furious before, and a quick glance at Kurumu revealed that she wasn't the only one. "After this? You mean after he-"

"After he rushed to our rescue - AGAIN, mind you - nearly got himself killed standing up to Evil Moka for your sake, and then brushed it all off the moment you came back to your senses?" Tsukune said, stepping forward as Moka shrunk back. "Evil Moka could have killed him for no other reason than because she didn't like his attitude!"

"He could have ended the fight much sooner if he wasn't so stubborn!" Moka shot back, her own expression heating up.

"So what?" Tsukune asked, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "Why should he have to give up and be humiliated? He thought you were in trouble! He didn't know that you and Evil Moka are pretty much the same person because YOU refused to trust him that far! Do you really think so little of him that you think he'd attack someone just because they could pose a threat? Do you really think he's the kind of person who could hurt an innocent person on some stupid excuse?"

Moka looked away again. "I don't trust violent people." She was quiet for a few seconds while Tsukune bristled before she added in a whisper, "Including myself..."

Tsukune felt his irritation soften at her words, and once again found his instinctive affection for Moka fighting against his will to defend his friend. "That's... Let's leave it at that for now," he grumbled, rubbing his head wearily as he backed away from the vampiress. "We've all just been through a lot, and I think we all need some time to think things over. I'll see you later, Moka."

Tsukune turned and walked stiffly out of the room without another word.

Kurumu, who had remained silent all throughout Tsukune's outburst, gave Moka a long, searching stare, her eyes locked on the Rosario

Then she turned and followed Tsukune out into the office.

"I just don't understand how she could treat him like that," Tsukune mumbled to himself as he made his way through the veritable maze of injured students lying on metal slabs and cots. "Well, actually, if she was upset about all her injuries I could understand, although that's not really his fault either, but I can't believe she's actually afraid Ranma will hurt her."

Kurumu snorted. "That's not what Moka is afraid of."

Tsukune froze to a halt as he reached for the door leading to the hallway, and then his head jerked back toward the succubus. "What? What do you mean?"

Kurumu smirked as she moved ahead of her beloved, pushing the door open for her and then leading him into the hall. "I mean, even Moka, as timid as she is, doesn't seriously think Ranma is going to beat her up or kill her. In a way, it's really naive of her, but I'm pretty sure she thinks Ranma is every inch as honorable as you do."

Tsukune looked quite confused. "But... why else would she be scared of him? And why would she lie about it?"

Kurumu hummed thoughtfully to herself as she strolled down the hallway, hands clasped behind her back. "Wellll... I never said that she was lying, really. But what if it wasn't our Moka who was scared?"

Tsukune blinked. "Evil Moka?"

"Right. They share the same body, right? They can't be completely separate from each other. What if the emotions of one bled over into the other to some degree?"

Tsukune nodded slowly, completely hooked by Kurumu's theory. "That would make sense... Evil Moka wouldn't have really been so bothered by Ranma otherwise... and she didn't hurt me even when I stood up to her."

"Exactly!" Kurumu chirped as she whirled around. "Of course, that begs the question: why would Evil Moka be scared of Ranma? Because he might bully her?"

Tsukune shook his head. "If our Moka doesn't think of him that way, there's no reason Evil Moka would. Besides, she's way too strong for anyone to beat up on casually."

Kurumu grinned. "Then what could she be scared of? What could unnerve a vampire, known as one of the strongest monsters in the world? Why would Evil Moka's first independent act be to rush headlong into battle with someone who more or less considers her a friend?"

Tsukune's brow creased as his expression darkened. "She's not afraid of him beating her, necessarily. She's afraid that she can't beat him."

Kurumu said nothing, her eyes twinkling.

"That's it, isn't it? Evil Moka told him to 'know his place'. She wants to make sure he knows she's stronger than he is, and she's nervous that she might not be." Tsukune sighed. "It's funny... even after knowing Moka since school started, and even letting her feed on me... I still don't know much about vampires."

Kurumu's smug expression melted away. "Well, in all fairness, the Moka we know isn't much like the vampires from stories. Actually, if it weren't for her biting you all the time, I couldn't have guessed what she was." Then she frowned. "Evil Moka is way more in line with what I've heard: powerful, contemptuous of lesser beings, and above all, prideful. Ranma could rub someone like that wrong in all sorts of ways."

Tsukune nodded, his face an expression of determination. "We have to tell him."

The succubus blinked, and then looked uncertain as she scratched her head. "Well... there's no reason not to, I guess, but..."

"But what?" Tsukune prompted, wondering why Kurumu might hesitate to tell Ranma about the persisting threat brooding within one of their closest friends. The fact that Evil Moka was not simply a spell of madness or the fruition of an enemy's plot meant that every threat to the Rosario around Moka's neck was also a threat to Ranma's safety!

"But, well..." Kurumu shrugged. "Do you think he'd care?"

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Ah. Point taken."

hr

Ranma groaned as she stretched her body, trying to get the kinks out of her back as she left her dorm room and kicked the door shut behind her.

"Ah... good nap. And classes are almost over, too."

The redhead scrubbed her hair with her hand as she thought over the events of earlier in the day. "Hmm... I think my ribs aren't one hundred percent yet, but I still want to attend the Fight Club meeting. Besides, I doubt Wildman will let me duck out of a meeting just because of a few broken bones." Riza seemed more hard-core than most of her trainers in the past, if far more serious about it. She hadn't yet gotten to spar directly with the assistant gym instructor, but she was sure it would be a tough battle.

'Wildman's the only fighting monster I've seen so far that doesn't telegraph her power. Well, unless you count Moka, I guess,' Ranma thought. She supposed that hiding an incredibly powerful other-self for so long even from one's closest friends also counted as subtlety.

That thought made Ranma frown, and she suddenly turned sharply before walking down the hall to the door immediately next to hers.

She knocked, and then waited patiently as a muffled stomping noise came from the other side of the door, as if something massive was walking toward the entrance.

After a few seconds, Chopper Rikishi opened up his front door, staring down at the vaguely familiar redhead in confusion. "Yeah? Who're you?"

Ranma blinked in surprise at seeing who was at the door. "Chopper? You live next door? I didn't know that," she mused, ignoring his mounting confusion as to who she was. "Anyway, can I talk to Mizore for a minute?"

Chopper stared, and then silently backed away before craning his neck to look inward.

Sitting on the floor next to the wall Chopper shared with Ranma and Tsukune was Mizore. She was hunched over to minimize her profile, and had a doctor's stethoscope on with the dish planted against the wall.

She also had a massive sweatdrop hanging from the back of her head as she remained where she was, pretending that she hadn't been discovered.

"Do you know who she is? The last few days she's just been popping up in here and messing with the wall. Whenever I try to question her she just flicks ice cubes at me until I give up and head out to the gym," Chopper grumbled. He wasn't particularly inclined to use force on random girls unless there was a fight involved, but he rather hoped there was some sort of explanation for the constant intrusions. The girl took up valuable floor space which was vital for doing push-ups, and whenever she was around the air conditioning seemed to crank itself up automatically.

"She's just a friend of mine, that's all," Ranma said, brushing off the troll. "Hey, Mizore, do you have any good pictures from that fight with Evil Moka this morning? I was too busy dodging all the kicks to get a good view of them, and I wanted to see if I could get a look from another angle."

Mizore remained absolutely still for several seconds, as if there were some chance that she might go unnoticed. Then, finally, she nodded blankly, still facing the wall.

"Cool! I'll look 'em over later. I have to get to my club right now."

Without further comment the pigtailed girl turned away, but was halted when Mizore suddenly spoke.

"Wait. Ranma..."

Ranma turned her head back, ignoring Chopper's perplexed gaze as the troll stared intently at her breasts, searching for some sign of deceit in her body.

Mizore had finally turned away from her endeavor, and her face looked slightly tense as she took off the stethoscope and looked at Ranma. "Are you..."

"I'm a guy," Ranma said, guessing her stalker's question as Mizore trailed off. "It's a magic curse. I turn into a girl with cold water, and back into a man with hot water. It came from China. Cross-dressing isn't a hobby of mine. I do know my measurements for disguise purposes, but I don't like to give them out, and no, I don't play with myself when I'm like this. Anything else?" She asked, running through the list of answers to the most common questions she got when someone new discovered her curse.

Mizore hesitated for a moment before she shook her head. "I should have known, actually... you only have boy's underwear."

Ranma shrugged as she turned away, once more heading out into the hall. "Yeah, I really hate wearing pan..." she trailed off awkwardly, thankfully avoiding her humiliating revelation as she suddenly considered Mizore's humiliating revelation. "Wait, how do you know what kind of underwear I have?"

Ranma spun around, but was too late as Mizore hopped out of Chopper's window, making her escape.

"So... you're Ranma SAOTOME?" Chopper finally asked, flicking one of Ranma's breasts with a finger and watching it bounce. "So you're some kinda shape-changer?"

Ranma spared the wrestler an irritated glance. "I JUST explained this. I'm not a shape-changer, I'm human! It's just a curse!"

"Yeah, and I'm captain of the chess club," he chuckled, grabbing one of the redhead's mammaries with his enormous hand and squeezing to further confirm their substance.

"If you don't get your hand off me, chess will be the most active thing you'll be able to do," Ranma growled, her eyes narrowing to icy blue razors. "I've never dislocated a spine before, but I'm a QUICK learner."

Chopper jerked his hand back as if it was on fire. "All right, all right! Yeesh!" After seeing the pigtailed girl's dangerous expression fade, he continued. "So, are you done here? I finally have my whole room back, and I have, like, two thousand push-ups to do. If I don't start training again right away I'll NEVER catch up."

Ranma felt all of her annoyance at the wrestler melt away at the thought of such dedication to his training, and she nearly shed a tear as she bowed to the massive student. "Right! Catch ya later!"

Five minutes later Ranma burst into the front door of the room that the fight club used, her hand shooting into the air.

"Ranma Saotome, reporting for fight club!" she shouted, standing at attention like a soldier as all activity in the room ground to a halt.

There was absolute silence for several seconds as the various club members stared blankly at her.

And then, all at once, the small crowd erupted.

"All right! He's back! Erm, SHE'S back!"

"Awesome match, Saotome! You walloped that vampire!"

"Can you believe that runt cut you out right at the end? You freakin' had that bloodsucker on the ropes!"

"Oi, do you actually know that chick? 'Cause depending on whether you're actually a girl or not, I have these tickets for a movie on Friday..."

Shooting a quick glare at the last speaker, Ranma held her composure as Riza Wildman started pushing her way through the excited ring of fighters, letting the praise wash over her like water. Ranma's ego normally ate up sideline gossip, but in this case there was someone she genuinely wanted to impress.

Riza shoved aside a pair of her club members roughly, and then stared down at the shorter redhead through narrowed eyes.

She couldn't hold the expression for long though, and she sweatdropped as she looked Ranma over. "Is that really you, Saotome? What the hell happened to you?"

"Magic curse," Ranma said, shrugging. "I'm actually a guy."

Riza frowned as she poked one of Ranma's breasts, seemingly annoyed at the shorter girl's assets. "Hmph. That's a pretty convenient curse, I'd say."

"Convenient my ass," Ranma grumbled, scratching the back of her head. "If I'd had my normal form during the entire fight against Evil Moka, I would have taken her down before Tsukune could have stopped me."

Riza smirked slightly. "I heard a thing or two about that. Good work, Human." Then her smirk turned into a sadistic grin as she cracked her knuckles. "Those vampires are a real pain in the ass. We need to teach them who's boss right away, before they start causing trouble."

"Ah... right," Ranma mumbled, a bit unnerved by the gleeful rage in the woman's eyes. "I honestly don't even know what that fight was about. I only fought Evil Moka because she attacked me."

"You don't need to understand vampires. In fact, it's better if you don't," Riza said snidely. "Worthless bloodsuckers..."

Ranma was about to excuse herself to her training when Riza continued.

"And speaking of worthless... OI! Eyebrows! Get your sorry tail over here!" Riza growled.

Ranma was fairly surprised at the irritation in the werewolf's voice as Kouma started pushing himself forward from the back of the crowd, having kept his silence while everyone else erupted into praise for Ranma's battle. He seemed rather confused at the sudden summons, and slightly pensive as well.

His tension turned to fear as Riza suddenly grabbed him by the head and dragged his face almost nose-to-nose with her own. "Wh-What? What's wrong?" he mumbled, a blush spreading across his face as Riza's hard yellow eyes bored into his dark crimson ones.

"You're the Human's partner, aren't you?" Riza snapped angrily. "You were at the fight, weren't you?"

Kouma gulped and tried to nod, but it was hard to do with Riza's shockingly powerful grip on his skull.

"Then why the hell were you standing on the sidelines while your partner was going toe-to-toe with the enemy?" Riza snarled. "The fight club lives or dies as a pack, Eyebrows! When you let the shape-shifter down, you let us all down!"

There was a great deal of surprise at Riza's sudden fury all around, but Ranma was by far the most stunned. She wasn't sure how to feel; slighted that Riza thought she needed help in a fight or impressed at her insistence to forge camaraderie into her members. There was even part of her that was analyzing Riza's argument and feeling a little miffed as it considered that the taller redhead was right.

Although her most prominent emotion was by far the hope that Riza wouldn't start referring to her as "shape-shifter" from now on.

Kouma recoiled, his legendary temper faltering completely in the face of the sudden dressing-down. "B-But, he was-"

"He was fighting for his life against the enemy! Is there a REASON you let him take on a vampire all on his own?" she demanded.

Kouma froze up. There was a reason, but it was the worse kind: he wanted to see Ranma lose. Ranma was an annoyance, an arrogant and overbearing peer who had proven himself a superior fighter, and that jealousy constantly fueled his resentment for the pigtailed boy, easily overwhelming the grudging respect he felt for the other fighter and the mandate of the fight club. If Ranma lost, that would have taken him down a peg. If he had been injured, then perhaps it would handicap him enough that Kouma could replace him as the best fighter in the club. There were several reasons for him to turn his back on his unwanted partner, but not a one of them would erase the contempt in Riza's glare. Having his actions shoved in his face like this, and being exposed before all of his peers for the petty creature he was, Kouma felt his pride wither within his chest.

"Oi, Wildman, hold up. It wasn't like that," Ranma said suddenly, grabbing the taller redhead's attention.

Riza raised an eyebrow. "Really? From what I heard-"

"Look, I don't know what the peanut gallery told you," Ranma mumbled wearily as she scrubbed her hair with her hand, "but that wasn't a life-or-death struggle at all. It was a personal fight. I guess Moka has some kind of split personality, and one of them hates me slightly more than the other one, but she's not an enemy. Well, I don't think so; I was kind of out of it when Evil Moka was talking about her being the 'true self' or whatever."

The pigtailed girl shrugged. "The point is, you can think of it as an honor duel. I wasn't gonna kill her, and she probably wasn't going to kill me. I wouldn't have let Kouma jump in if he tried."

Riza quickly let go of the stunned hellhound's forehead. "Oh, s-so that's how it was. I see." She gathered herself up and nodded to Kouma. "Never mind then, Eyebrows. I got ahead of myself, there. You're NEVER to interrupt an honor duel between warriors!"

The head of the fight club quickly turned away from the chastened monster. "All right, that's enough gawking! Get back to your training! By our next meeting, Saotome better not be the only one with a decent fight on his record!"

The other club members let out a cheer as they quickly broke up into their usual pairs, rushing into their sparring groups with renewed vigor.

Kouma, for his part, slunk away silently the moment Riza's attention was off him, and Ranma watched the hellhound leave the room before she slipped out after him.

'Yeesh. Either Eyebrows isn't very aware of his surroundings or he's really worked up,' Ranma thought to herself as she walked down the halls after the hellhound. She wasn't being particularly stealthy, but Kouma walked stiffly down the halls toward the exit, his head down and seemingly unaware of anything around him.

'What's with him, anyway? You'd think he'd be happy to get out of that mess.'

Kouma pushed the door open and stepped outside, pulling himself to the side the building before fishing around in his pocket.

After a moment, he pulled out a cigarette and then stuck it in his mouth before gently touching his index finger to the tip.

"Hey, I didn't know you smoked."

Kouma made an extremely undignified yelping sound as he jumped, and the hot-tempered monster whirled around to face the intruder.

Ranma was leaning out the window next to him, her elbow planted on the sill. "You all right? You left in a hurry back there, and we haven't done any training yet."

Kouma forced himself to calm down, and once more touched his finger to the end of the cigarette. "I... needed some time to think, that's all," he mumbled as the tip of the cigarette lit up with a bright orange glow.

Ranma made a face as Kouma inhaled deeply. "You know, those things are really bad for you. They probably cut your lung capacity in half."

Kouma gave Ranma an odd stare as he took a deep drag off the cigarette. "Saotome, do you remember what kind of monster I am?"

"Doggy," Ranma said without hesitation. Then she yanked her head back as a thin stream of embers shot past her face, searing the wall outside the window. "What? Did I guess wrong?"

"I'm a HELLHOUND, idiot," Kouma snarled, smoke pouring from the side of his mouth.

"So what?" Ranma asked, sticking her head out again.

"SO, where do you think hellhounds are from?"

Ranma considered this carefully before she replied. "Well, I know you can get them at the pound, but I think most people prefer pet stores."

This time she had to pull herself entirely within the building as a jet of fire roared past.

Once Ranma peeked out again, an extremely irritated Kouma continued his explanation. "Hellhounds come from the underworld, moron! As in HELL. Do you know what the air is like in Hell?" He took a deep drag from the cigarette, his expression becoming momentarily serene. "It's full of ash and hot as an oven. In places, it's full of toxic chemicals that could knock out a troll with a single sniff."

Ranma watched in fascination as Kouma spoke with a distinctly fond expression. "Sounds awful."

"Of course it would sound that way to someone used to... THIS," Kouma grumbled, waving a hand around haphazardly to indicate the atmosphere. "But a hellhound's lungs separate the toxins and flammable gases from the air and uses them. If I breathe too much clean air, my body temperature starts to drop, and I find it harder and harder to breathe fire."

"So you smoke?" Ranma asked curiously, actually quite interested in this new revelation.

Kouma shrugged as he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and stared at it. "It's a surprisingly good approximation of Hell. These 'Marlboro' guys are probably mostly devils."

With that, the hellhound suddenly opened his mouth and flicked the cigarette inside, swallowing the butt with a slow, savoring gulp.

Ranma looked slightly sick at the sight, but Kouma paid it no mind as he gazed out at the bleak landscape surrounding Youkai Academy. "Hey, Saotome? Why did you come to Youkai Academy?"

"I got kicked out of my old school," Ranma mumbled, just a slight edge of bitterness in her voice.

"For what? Fighting?" Kouma pressed.

"I had to rescue my fiancee from a race of stupid bird-people in China," Ranma groused. "As a result, I missed too many days to make up and the principal expelled me. So basically it's all that jerk Saffron's fault."

The pigtailed girl suddenly turned around and glared at Saffron, who had been approaching from behind her in the halls. "That's right, I said it! Why the hell should anyone have to die for an oversized space heater like you?"

Saffron's expression darkened as he stopped dead in the halls, having come along at a particularly bad time in the conversation. "I... actually wanted to thank-"

"Nobody cares, bird-brain. Scram," Kouma said, glaring through the window as the Phoenix King turned around and walked off, sulking.

Ranma leaned out of the window further. "How about you? Do you have a real reason for being here?"

Kouma grimaced as he turned back to the bleak landscape, leaning against the outer wall of the school building. "I was sent here by my mother. She..."

The hellhound suddenly tensed up, as if feeling physically ill from making this statement to the pigtailed girl. 'No, don't hesitate, damn it! If I can't even tell him a little thing like this about me, I'll never learn to actually trust this guy! And if I don't trust him, we won't be able to fight together! And if we can't fight together, Miss Wildman will just think I'm slowing him down! She'll hate me!'

The last thought send an electric jolt of fear down his back, and he quickly went on. "My mother wants me... to be a lawyer."

There was dead silence for several seconds as Ranma stared at the back of Kouma's head.

"PFFT!" Suddenly, the martial artist snorted loudly as she tried to hold in laughter. "Are you-kkk!-serious? A lawyer! Ha! That's priceless!"

A vein popped up on Kouma's head as he wallowed in regret. 'I... can't trust this guy at all, can I?'

"Aren't you more the type who **causes** lawsuits?" Ranma asked between giggles.

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm here," Kouma growled out, forcing himself to continue. "Because of my temper, I hurt a lot of humans back where I lived. So my mother sent me here to try and learn to hold back better."

Ranma's chuckling died off at the thought of Kouma getting angry and hurting possibly innocent people, though she decided there was little point in chastising the hellhound for it. "Wait, I thought you lived in Hell."

Kouma winced, surprised that Ranma would pick up a detail like that. "I used to... a long time ago. It's a long story."

Ranma snorted as she rolled backward out the window and landed in a squat at Kouma's feet. "Well, I've got all day since it looks like we're not sparring, so go ahead and tell me."

The hellhound looked away uncomfortably. "It's not that interesting a story, really..."

"Well, it's sure to be more interesting than whatever excuse Moka has for turning into a nasty psycho, and that's the only other back story I have waiting for me if I go meet up with Tsukune, so get to it," Ranma ordered.

Kouma felt a small spark of defiance well up within him, but smothered it immediately. "All right, fine. Where to begin..."

After several long seconds of staring down into the dirt, Kouma spoke again. "I hate my dad."

"You're preaching to the choir, Eyebrows," Ranma murmured, unimpressed by the sudden admission.

Kouma ignored the commentary. "Ever since I was a newborn puppy, my dad raised me to be a warrior. A guardian. We were the chosen ones, the foremost protectors of the realm of the dead. Day in and day out... and during the night-time too, I guess - it's not like there's night in Hell - I trained with my father, becoming stronger and stronger to guard the gates of the Underworld on my own some day."

Ranma nodded slowly as images formed in his mind of a tiny black puppy playing with a gigantic burning hound the size of a tour bus.

"I was supposed to be the best of the best. Our family line was such that each generation of hellhound always rose to greater heights than the last, always surpassing the power of its ancestors. Selective breeding, harsh training, grueling encounters... Hell is a difficult place to live under any conditions, but what a warrior guardian has to go through to attain his post is the equal of any torment heaped upon the damned," Kouma grumbled, scrubbing his hair with his hand.

"Okay, so what went wrong? Why do you hate your dad?" Ranma asked. "And most importantly, why are you in school to become a lawyer when you already have a gig lined up for you?"

Kouma grit his teeth, and hot smoke thick with ash seeped out of his mouth as he spoke. "All those questions have the same answer. I was barely ten years old at the time-"

"In dog years?" Ranma asked, blinking.

She grabbed the haymaker before it could impact her face, and grimaced as the halo of flame around Kouma's fist seared her hand. "All right, all right, sorry! Go on."

Kouma yanked his hand back and his expression turned grim once again. "You might be wondering what, exactly, a guardian of the gates of Hell guards against. As you may have guessed, the job mostly involves keeping things from getting out; there aren't many souls eager to get in."

Ranma's image of father and son hellhound training together shifted, and he imagined the pair of fire-breathing canines pouncing on ghosts among a backdrop of lava flows and smoldering rock.

"Every once in a while, though, we do get visitors," Kouma said in a low growl as his rage slowly built from the flickering candle constantly burning within his heart. "Five years ago was the last time it happened. It was the dark elves. They can harvest souls and use them, I guess, and souls in Hell are especially valuable because of the suffering they've been through or some nonsense like that. I don't really get why, but as the story goes a party of the pointy-eared sickos charged the gates of Hell on a raid. Naturally, it's as much the hellhound's job to repel intruders as it is to keep the denizens contained."

Ranma noted curiously that despite the detached and detailed manner in which he explained the story, the hellhound's body was slowly growing hotter and his eyes glowed with a furious blood-red light. Getting an idea, she started rummaging through her things as Kouma continued.

"The dark elves came, and... he betrayed us. ALL of us!" Kouma exploded, his hands clenching into fists as his eyes seemed to bore down into the ground as if staring at the very scene of the crime. "My father, guardian of the gates of Hell, most powerful of the hellhounds and the pinnacle of our family line, turned traitor! The elves ran rampant through the fire plains, took all the souls they wanted, and then left. TAKING MY DAD WITH THEM! That bastard not only neglected his duty and dishonored our name, but then he just LEFT me and my entire family!"

Ranma frowned as she slowly filled a tea kettle with water from a nearby hose. "Is there more to it than that? It seems to me like there's something else about it that's bothering you."

Kouma tensed up as Ranma's appraisal struck home, the slowly expanding anger within him, once a mere candle flame, building into a raging inferno.

"That... That worthless... despicable... WEAKLING... he..."

Kouma's eyes snapped up to meet Ranma's, and the pigtailed girl was honestly taken aback by the glowing spheres of hatred that burned furiously where the hellhound's eyes had been. Staring into those twin suns, she felt like she was being swallowed by fire, as if the demonic hound's gaze was searing her very soul.

"He became their PET!" Kouma finally snarled, a corona of fire erupting around him.

Ranma's expression fell as the earlier effect of staring into Kouma's eyes was abruptly cut short. "Huh? He did what?"

"Their PET!" Kouma repeated, baring his fangs as he clenched his teeth. "They came to the gates with a well-seasoned steak and a meat bone, and then they all took turns petting him as he ate it up! They were playing frisbee with him on the fire plains as the soul-catchers did their job, and the last I saw of him, he was wagging his tail like an idiot on board the dark elf ship as the raider captain gave him a belly rub!"

Kouma was panting furiously as he dug up his most hated memories, puffs of black smoke laced with flame blasting from his mouth. "Even now, I bet he's holed up in some decadent dark elf palace, chowing down on fine meat and milk bones! I'm sure he plays around with the elves all day and goes on long hunts with them to take down incredible creatures! He probably even has his own harem, the filthy coward! All for shirking his thankless, life-long, honor-bound duty to guard the most wretched place in the universe!"

Ranma sweatdropped. 'I don't blame him. Not one bit.'

Kouma seemed to calm down slightly after the initial venting, although an aura of fire still flickered around him. "After that, our family line was dishonored, and the lords of the underworld decided we were no longer trustworthy guardians. They installed a security system and manned the gates with a few of the airport security guards that enjoyed the strip-searches a bit too much for Heaven's tastes, and then booted my family out of Hell. We are exiles in this world, never to return to our ancestral home."

Ranma stared as the hellhound deflated, clearly ashamed by the ordeal he had just related.

"So... lemme get this straight: your pop betrayed your family, and as... a **punishment**... your family got to leave the land of eternal damnation?"

"Don't make it sound like he was doing us a favor!" Kouma snapped angrily, "We had a fine and glorious duty! He betrayed everything our line and my life stood for! The shame that he-"

_Fweeeeeeet!_ Kouma's rant was interrupted by a rapidly building whistling noise, and the hellhound blinked in confusion as he realized that the sound was coming from directly above him.

He also realized, as Ranma stood up and took her steaming kettle from his back, that the weight he had been feeling on his shoulders was NOT the crushing burden of his dishonor, as he had assumed.

"Thanks for the hot water. It's how I turn back into a guy," Ranma explained as she poured a thin stream of the stuff over her head. Wincing at the temperature, Ranma's form rapidly expanded as his chest shrunk, and before Kouma's curious gaze he was soon in his birth gender.

"So no wonder you get all worked up whenever anyone makes a dog joke," Ranma deadpanned as the tea kettle vanished behind his back. "But I don't really understand where all this goes from here on out. I mean, are you going to do anything about what happened, or just move on with your life?" Personally, Ranma suspected that Kouma's plan mostly involved furious rages as his guilt and anger ate away at him from the inside, but he didn't want to present that as a real option to the boy.

"I want to do both," Kouma said firmly as he crossed his arms over his chest. "My mother wants me to learn to live among humans and make the most out of my new life here. Fine. If I have to put up with this stupid school for that to happen, I will."

Then the hellhound gripping a shaking fist in the air in front of him. "But I'm going to get my father back for what he did, too! I won't give up my training, and I'll become even stronger than him! And then I'll hunt him down like the miserable deserter he is, and give him a deserter's judgment!"

Ranma thought that was a little bit too intense considering the elder hellhound's "crimes", but kept his opinions to himself for once as Kouma stood up to stand eye-to-eye with him.

"But to do that, I'll need help," Kouma admitted seriously, his red eyes grim. "As I am now... I'm too weak, too unstable. I need Miss Wildman's teaching and I need the conflict that I see all around this school in order to get stronger. And I... I need..."

The hellhound took a deep breath before he finally forced out the words he had been holding back. "And I need you, as the better fighter of us two, to help me move forward and overcome my weaknesses," he finally blurted out.

Ranma froze, caught completely off-guard by the sudden admission, and feeling a sympathetic pang in his heart that had been becoming more and more common lately.

Sure, people came to him with their problems all the time in the past, whether they were (ostensibly) his friends or his worst enemies. But they had always been tangible, immediate problems that were more often than not the fault of whoever was pleading for assistance. They only came to him because Ranma's reluctance to back down before a challenge and his peerless abilities made him the best tool available, especially as the pigtailed boy usually neglected to ask for anything in return.

Kouma wasn't asking him to beat his father for him or teach him a useful technique, but rather making a place for himself at Ranma's side, admitting his inadequacy and asking Ranma to help him overcome it. Not as a bothersome neighbor leeching off his more successful peers, but as a partner and friend.

Kouma raised an eyebrow. "Are... Are you crying?" he asked, perplexed.

Ranma quickly swiped a hand over his face. "N-No! Of course I'm not crying! All that ash you're always blowing around just got in my eyes, that's all!" the pigtailed boy snapped.

Kouma recoiled slightly. "Okay, whatever..." the hellhound trailed off, uncertain as to whether he had touched a nerve or not.

Ranma took a moment to compose himself and then started walking past Kouma, indicating that the other student should follow. "Anyway, that's a pretty interesting story. I guess I can see why you'd be mad at your old man." He shrugged. "Actually, my pop was a real idiot too. This stupid curse is his fault."

"Really? What'd he do?" Kouma asked, curious about Ranma's story now that he had told his own.

"Well, when I was younger, my pop decided to take a trip to China..."

hr

Tsukune steepled his fingers as he sat down across from Kurumu and Yukari, his expression grim and serious.

"I know that the mess this morning caused a lot of confusion surrounding Moka and Ranma, but there's another angle we haven't been looking at, and I think it's important."

"What would that be?" Kurumu asked as she slid her chair closer to Tsukune. She loved it when Tsukune was forced into taking on the role of leader; without Ranma's presence and power smothering everyone around him or Moka to distract him, the usually timid boy fell into the role quite easily.

"The Enforcers," Tsukune grumbled, leaning back as he scratched his chin. "This is the third time that I've seen the Enforcers go after Ranma, and now they've even started attacking us just for being close to him."

"What did Senpai do to them in the first place?" Yukari asked as she idly thumbed through a book. Unlike Kurumu, she didn't seem nearly so enthusiastic to be deferring to Tsukune.

Kurumu snorted. "From what we heard from Miss Madaraki, it could be anything. They only enforce the school rules when they want to attack someone or get bribes. Do you really think it'd be hard for them to come up with a violation from Ranma?"

"That's not so much what concerns me," Tsukune mumbled, seizing the girls' attention once more. "If people want to attack Ranma, THEY'RE the ones risking their lives, after all. I'd like to help put a stop to it entirely if I can, but I'm more worried that in this last case they attacked us, and didn't even have a flimsy pretext for it."

Tsukune stared down at the table for a long moment, and then finally looked up at Yukari. "Yukari, do you know who the leader of the Enforcers is?"

"His name is Kuyo," Yukari said as she flipped through a student roster. "I'm not sure off-hand what kind of monster he is, but he definitely uses fire." She turned the book around to show Tsukune a Kurumu a picture of the man. "A senior who hasn't graduated, presumably because he has an 'ongoing responsibility to the school and maintaining order'." The picture boasted a man with long white hair and a long, pale face. He had a wide, exposed forehead which sported a pair of strange black spots that seemed to be some sort of tattoos.

"He's just a tyrant who doesn't want to give up his position," Kurumu spat.

"Probably true, but it seems he's pretty good at it," Yukari offered, shrugging.

Tsukune nodded thoughtfully. "And who does the Protection Committee answer to?"

"Ostensibly they're controlled by both the Headmaster and the Student Council, actually," Yukari mentioned, her voice slightly puzzled. "I can understand how the Headmaster wouldn't care as long as the school hasn't turned into a charnel house, but I can't account for how they get away with their actions so easily under the watch of the Council. Those are elected positions after all, and the Enforcers are tremendously unpopular."

Kurumu sighed. "I can guess why. Whether or not the structure of the school apes a human school's, they're all still monsters, after all. When the Protection Committee threatens, bribes, and assaults the members of the Student Council, they don't use their authority to punish them, they fall into line."

Tsukune nodded darkly. "I suppose the threat of expulsion would seem kind of hollow coming from someone with a claw at their throat," he admitted. "So the Student Council has authority over the Committee, but can't actually stop them because the Committee can harm them. I suppose that leaves the Headmaster as the only force that can stand up to the Enforcers," the human concluded.

"Not necessarily," said a new voice that instantly caused the three students to flinch in fear.

Jadeite walked into the empty classroom with a thoughtful expression on his face and his hands clasped behind his back as he considered the members of his club. "Forgive me for the interruption. I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation, but since you're all quite LATE for your MANDATORY club activities, I thought that, as the sponsor of our group, it was my responsibility to hunt... I mean, gather you all."

Tsukune watched as Yukari and Kurumu grimaced. "Uh, but Professor Jadeite, I made sure to leave you a note explaining-"

"You explained that your friend had been injured badly, and then sought to use that as an excuse to shirk your duties to me," Jadeite said, a frown crossing his face as Tsukune flinched back. "Do not think that I let my minions get away with such laxity. We will go to collect the pink-haired one from the infirmary, and then the four of you shall immediately descend into the Dungeon of Gratuitous Traps. If there's time afterward, we may yet be able to get to Overkill Cavern as well."

Tsukune pushed away the dread at Jadeite's words and instead focused on the teacher's entering comment. "Wait, when you entered, you said that the Headmaster wasn't necessarily the only force that could stand up to the Enforcers, right?"

Jadeite blinked at the change of topic. "That's correct. Just as the top-heavy one noted that the Protection Committee uses the nature of monsters to usurp authority, there are some students that reject the Committee's authority on the sole basis that they're too strong to restrain."

As Kurumu bristled at the "top-heavy" comment, Yukari blinked in surprise.

"Of course! We've seen Senpai stand up the Enforcers again and again! There have to be other students willing to do the same thing!"

"The caveat, of course, is that the Protection Committee consists of approximately three dozen battle-hardened and utterly loyal monsters that operate with a unified purpose, if not any particular notion of competence," Jadeite continued, unconsciously falling into his lecturer mode. "So it follows that any single student that resists them will eventually be overwhelmed and taken down. However, there are forces that band together to array themselves against the Committee as well."

The Negaverse General stopped to think. "I believe the fight club was prominent in this role last semester, when Wildman joined the faculty and set it up. Besides them, the monstrels get rid of anyone who attacks one of their number, so even a Committee member that takes action against them will eventually be isolated and killed."

"Monstrels? What are they?" Tsukune asked.

"Hybrid monsters," Yukari explained distastefully. "Usually when two monsters of different species breed, it produces a twisted mutant rather than a genetically stable monster. They're freaks of nature, and usually quite bitter about it."

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Oi, Yukari, isn't that a little harsh? People say cruel things like that about witches, too."

Yukari snorted. "Don't compare us witches to those abominations! Witches have a long and distinguished history!"

"Yes, you do," Jadeite agreed. "Mostly as kindling for groups of angry humans."

As Yukari's face darkened, Jadeite cleared his throat. "Well, as interesting as this topic is, it isn't getting me any closer to ultimate power. We'll depart imme-"

The military leader-turned educator was interrupted by a sudden, howling laughter that roared through the halls.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh Lucifer! You... _Gasp!_ You can't be-HA HA!-serious! That's hilarious!" Tsukune immediately recognized the voice as Kouma's, although he was surprised to hear actual mirth from the hellhound.

The next voice everyone recognized. "Hey, it's not funny! It was the single most awful event in my life!" Ranma complained, his voice clearly moving closer to the class room.

"Of course it's funny!" Kouma insisted as he fought to hold in laughter long enough to speak. "A pit of cats? That's the sort of thing they do to sadists in the pits, man! And you went through that as TRAINING?" He let out another howl of laughter.

The pair of fighters were passing by the open doorway - Ranma sulking angrily while Kouma was brushing tears from his eyes - when Kouma noticed Tsukune and the others inside.

Immediately he pushed his way into the room, fighting his chuckling as he pointed behind himself at Ranma. "You guys! Get this! The reason Saotome hates ca-"

_Whomp!_ The hellhound's jaw snapped shut as Ranma's foot fell onto the back of his head.

"HEY! Don't go telling that story to anyone else! That's a secret!" Ranma snapped, his face a bright red.

Naturally, Tsukune, Kurumu, and Yukari were instantly interested, and began staring at Ranma in askance.

Kouma, surprisingly, simply shoved Ranma's foot away calmly rather than getting upset. "Aw, c'mon! They're all your friends, right? They can know about it!"

Ranma immediately pointed at Jadeite, who was looking increasingly irritated with the interruption. "What about him? He's not my friend! So shut up!"

Jadeite nodded sharply as he cleared his throat. "Yes, as a matter of fact, me and the members of my club were about-"

_Crack! _The Negaverse General's jaw suddenly snapped shut in mid-sentence as Kouma's knuckles smashed into it, and the blond man was sent reeling in shock as pain flooded through his face.

His shock was compounded by a sense of dread as he noted several small embers flickering into being within his field of vision.

_THWOOM!_ Everyone else in the room flinched back as Jadeite's face seemed to explode, nearly knocking Tsukune and Yukari over from the buffeting wave of hot air.

The hellhound grinned as Jadeite hit the ground like a sack of rocks, his face a smoking mess. "There. He's down now, so that makes it okay, right?"

Ranma stared as his and Yukari's teacher twitched weakly on the floor. "Whoa! I didn't know you could do that!" he exclaimed. "Also, no."

"Why not?" Kurumu said, grabbing onto Ranma's shoulder eagerly. "Tell us!"

Yukari promptly latched onto his opposite arm, her eyes gleaming. "Come on Senpai! We won't laugh!"

"You'd better not laugh! It's not funny!" Ranma protested, his face flushed.

"So that means I can tell them, right?" Kouma asked. Ranma noted with great annoyance that a curved, black-furred tail had popped out of the back of his pants and was wagging up and down rapidly.

"No, you can't! Shut up about it!" Ranma snapped.

Kouma frowned in disappointment. "Well, can I at least tell them about you being engaged to three chicks at once?"

Ranma could practically FEEL Kurumu and Yukari's eyes bulging. "Knock it off! I don't go around trying to spill your stories the moment you tell me!"

"But your embarrassing secrets are so much better than mine!" the hellhound protested.

"Three women at once? Are they all the same species?" Kurumu wondered, immediately digging for details. "Do you, like, use a schedule to handle them all, or what?"

Yukari snorted, having recovered from the initial surprise of the revelation. "Hardly surprising. You're perfect alpha male material, after all. And there are lots of monsters that have a hunting pack social model."

"It's not like that!" Ranma protested angrily. "And I told you, I'm human!"

Tsukune had been mostly silent throughout all of this, his interest in Ranma's secrets abating as soon as he noticed that Ranma really didn't want to share them. His gaze had settled on Jadeite, who was still insensate on the floor after Kouma's sucker-punch.

'One of the groups to regularly take on the Enforcers is the fight club... and Ranma and Kouma are both part of the fight club...' he rubbed his chin. 'In that case...'

"Hey, Ranma? Kouma?" he said suddenly, stepping forward in the middle of the fiasco and instantly causing Kurumu and Ranma to fall silent. Kouma and Yukari weren't so quick to listen to the younger human, but they quickly sensed the mood and reluctantly gave him their attention as well.

"Are you two free right now?" Tsukune asked cautiously. "If you are, I have a proposition that might interest you..."

hr

"Damn. Is this really all you have?" asked a tall boy with a grim expression on his face as he gripped six hundred-yen coins in his fist. He was wearing the black long jacket and arm band that denoted his association with the enforcers, and was backed up by a fierce-looking woman in the same outfit as he glared down at a pair of much shorter students.

"W-Well, considering that there is no... uh... **official** fee for merely going about our c-club activities, shouldn't it suffice?" mumbled one of the besieged boys as he trembled in fear. Him and his friend were clearly part of the science club, wearing white lab coats with thick coke-bottle glasses and pocket protectors to complete the ensemble.

The male Enforcer growled as his fist tightened around the coins. "Watch your mouth, scum!" Then he tapped the armband around his bicep. "What is this? Hm?"

The pair of science club members looked confused for a moment, which only served to feed the taller student's exaggerated fury.

"Speak, worms! You're supposed to be intelligent, aren't you?" he snapped as the girl's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"It's your Protection Committee armband," one of the hapless students ventured, clearly confused as to why the intimidating Enforcer would ask.

"Exactly! I'm an OFFICIAL, granted authority by the leaders of this campus!" the Enforcer said proudly, his back stiffening. "Thus, any fee I demand is OFFICIAL by default! Is that understood?"

The small, bespectacled boy sighed in resignation. "Of... Of course. I can't really argue with that logic, can I?"

"Damn right you can't," snarled the male Enforcer. "Next time, make sure you-" he glanced back toward his partner as the fierce-looking girl tapped him on the shoulder. "Eh? What's wrong?"

When the girl did speak, her voice was like the sound of hissing steam. "We have company," she said as a boy unfamiliar to either of them approached purposefully.

One of the science club students adjusted his glasses as he peered down the hall. "Huh. That's Tsukune Aono, I believe, from freshman class C. I wonder what he wants." The boy wasn't known to be any kind of fighter, so he seriously doubted that a rescue was in order. In fact, the only reason that he knew of Tsukune at all was because the cutest girl in the freshman class, Moka Akashiya, and the second cutest (depending on which body parts one favored, perhaps), Kurumu Kurono, had both latched onto him like mussels and none of the other students could fathom why.

The Enforcers watched mutely as the harmless-looking boy approached, sharing a quick glance when the intruder cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, but you two are with the Protection Committee, right?" Tsukune asked rhetorically, pointing to the boy's armband. "I wanted to report some misbehavior by several of your fellow committee members. Should I talk to you or is there someone more senior I should see?"

The two Enforcers shared another glance, this one predatory.

"Well now, isn't that interesting. Misbehavior on the part of the Enforcers, you say?" the boy mused, approaching Tsukune with a smile. "Tell me, are you familiar with the human law 'slander'?"

Tsukune blinked. "Yes... that's when somebody lies to ruin the reputation of another, right?" Inwardly, the fairly helpless human was steeling himself in order to look the monsters in the eye without flinching. Although he was in very little real danger right now, he was still not so jaded to violence that he could calmly deal with these kinds of situations.

"Ooh, you catch on quick!" the boy said happily as he loomed over Tsukune. "Then let's see if you can finish this sentence: in order for me to forgive you for slandering my peers, who would never shame the good name of the Enforcers through so-called 'misbehavior', I'm going to need you to give me..."

He trailed off as the girl moved to flank Tsukune, a cruel smirk on her face.

Tsukune took a deep breath, forcing the words out without a stutter. "You need me to give you... warning that I think a few members of the fight club are sneaking up on you."

The reaction was instantaneous: expressions of pure shock lit the faces of the two Enforcers, and then they whirled around in a panic.

Ranma saluted lazily as he leaned against the wall next to the members of the science club, who were looking at the new arrivals with awe. Kouma was standing next to him, his arms crossed over his chest as he bared his long, dagger-like fangs.

"Yo! You guys should be more careful!" Ranma said cheerfully. "You won't be able to protect the school from rowdy guys like us if you're so easy to sneak up on!"

The male Enforcer took a step back, his gaze fearful. "No way... I thought Kuyo disbanded the fight and newspaper clubs!"

The girl hissed. "No, he merely had them attacked, not disbanded. Lord Kuyo prefers violence to paperwork. I can't believe the fight club was able to recover, though; I'd heard that every last member was killed."

"What, you don't think a little thing like a massacre of her precious students would stop Miss Wildman, did you?" Kouma snarled as he cracked his knuckles, apparently genuinely upset at the suggestion. "Whatever. The blood you spilled will be repaid tenfold!"

Ranma pushed himself to his feet and started to stretch. "If you want to give up now, you can. We have some questions to ask you and that's a lot easier if you don't have a concussion."

The two Enforcers glanced at each other, and then as one they whirled around to flee.

"Wh-What? How?" the male stuttered as he saw a large, barren wall where before had been empty hallway. "Impossible!"

Tsukune gave Yukari a silent thumbs-up as the young witch shut the book of illusion spells, having summoned a false wall to make their targets believe they were trapped. The effect was apparently such that it would vanish from the perspective of anyone who knew it was an illusion, so Tsukune and Kurumu were treated to an unobscured view of the battle to come as the Enforcers whirled back around in a panic.

"Damn it! How did this happen?" the girl snarled, her voice becoming even more high-pitched.

"Tch. So this is it. We stand and fight," the male Enforcer mumbled grimly as his body slowly started to bulge outward. "Whether you're fight club or monstrel or even part of the student council, since you've forced our hand we'll make you regret it," he growled, his voice becoming deeper and more hollow as his skin started to flatten into hard planes and darken substantially. After a few seconds his Enforcer jacket burst apart, revealing a huge body as big as Chopper's troll form, except made entirely of hard-chiseled stone.

The girl's form seemed to boil away as it expanded, her skin sloughing off into molten waste. Her true body was even darker than her partners, an ashen charcoal black, although where his was cut into hard, flat surfaces, her body was rough and irregular. After her body finished expanding, tearing through the burning shreds of her uniform, there was a loud cracking noise, and all at once great red seams of sizzling magma shot through her dark igneous carapace.

"It was nice of you to offer us a chance to surrender peacefully," the magma elemental gasped, her voice being a rush of hot gases seeping through the small cracks that made up her mouth, "unfortunately, we won't be offering you the same courtesy."

The earth elemental next to her stomped forward as spears of milky white crystal emerged from his oversized knuckles. "I guess now is as good a time as any for the fight club to die again. Come on, scum!"

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Shizuka Nekonome's ear-like hair fringes twitched happily as she gestured to the chalkboard behind her.

"Hello again, everyone! Today's topic is... that's right! Elementals!"

On the chalkboard were several drawings of small objects, each one corresponding to an elemental affinity: there was a small fire, a rock, a tornado, a lightning bolt, an ice cube, and a puddle.

"Elementals are monsters whose bodily makeup are consistent with the qualities of basic non-living aspects of the natural world. In this way, elementals represent elements in the sense that ancient druids and Greeks thought of them. Elementals have nothing to do with the periodic table, so those of you who failed chemistry can breathe easy!"

Shizuka moved on to a drawing of a cryptic-looking circle surrounded by nonsensical runic symbols. "Elementals are creatures of magic, usually summoned into this world to serve others. They have very little in the way of their own will, despite being sentient creatures, so they're very susceptible to picking up the behaviors of others and tend to be very loyal, since they usually don't like to think for themselves. The elementals that survive in this world long enough to need an education on how to blend in with humans are probably guards or experiments that somehow outlived their summoners. Not much is known about the realm they come from, mostly because I got my degree in liberal arts and I hate reading those big anthropological journals."

She pointed back to the pictures of individual elements, and then started drawing chalk lines between them. "Although there are many 'pure' elementals consisting of one element, like the hardy earth elemental, there are even more elementals that mix one element with another, like storm elementals that combine wind and lightning, or magma elementals that combine the resilience of stone with the searing power of fire!"

Shizuka grinned as she turned away from the chalkboard. "Although they make excellent pawns in some wizard's master battle strategy, on their own an elemental rarely makes full use of their potential. Easily overwhelmed and confused, most elementals resort to a berserk rage when they think they're going to lose, making them more dangerous but no more effective before falling."

"Well, that's all for now! Enjoy the fight!" the nekomata chirped.

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_Crunch!_ Ranma ducked as a fist half the size of his entire body smashed into the wall, puncturing the walls in a spray of wood and crystal splinters.

"Yo, Eyebrows! Can you handle the lava freak? I'd rather not try punching that," he explained as he somersaulted over a right hook.

Kouma snorted as he pounded his knuckles together, causing a halo of flame to burst out of the impact point. "Don't ask stupid questions! Just make sure you have the blockhead laid out by the time I finish with her, or I'll lose all my respect for you!"

"Finish with who, now?" the magma elemental hissed as molten rock oozed from her misshapen hands, burning and sizzling on the tile floor. "Play with fire and you get burned, fool!"

She burst forward with her hand extended, her fingers turning to reasonably sharp obsidian claws as fire raced down her palms.

Kouma snarled as he caught the elemental's arm, the magma spattering across his hand and arm with absolutely no discernible effect. "Actually, no, I don't."

Ranma turned away from the hellhound's fight as Kouma started hammering his opponent with his free hand.

"Looks like he'll be fine. Now what to do about you?" he asked conversationally as the earth elemental towered over him, its glowing green eyes staring down at the martial artist with cold hatred.

A blocky stone foot swept toward him, and Ranma hopped over it only to have a giant fist swipe at him in the air.

Much to the elemental's chagrin, Ranma grabbed onto the hand and rode out the swing on top of it rather than getting impaled and bludgeoned into a bloody mess.

Two sharp kicks formed deep cracks within the earth elemental's bicep, but Ranma was unsatisfied as he leapt off of his foe's body to avoid a set of grasping crystal talons.

'Not enough raw power... and I'm pretty sure this thing doesn't have vital points,' he thought to himself as he landed behind the elemental.

"Kachuu tenshin amaguriken!" Ranma called out as hundreds of punches rained down on the earth elemental's back in an assault that would have smashed a more biologically sensible creature's spine to gravel.

Ranma clicked his tongue at the spider-web pattern of cracks that adorned the broad stone face he had just assaulted, and idly winced at his sore knuckles before he darted back to avoid a circling backhand.

'Now would be a really good time to be able to do those super-powered vampire kicks,' Ranma mused as his opponent slowly turned to face him. 'Moka was able to put a ridiculous amount of ki into them, but I was so busy keeping her from turning me into a blood stain I didn't get a good reading on her technique...'

"Suffer, worm!" the earth elemental growled as he curled his arms under his chest, like a weightlifter flexing his biceps.

_Crack! Crack! Choonk!_ All over the elemental's body, jagged spears of quartz emerged from the hardened stone skin, covering the Enforcer in crystalline spikes.

'There's gotta be a weakness to this guy. Face, I guess? Or maybe the joints?' Ranma wondered as the massive creature charged again. Not that he was in any kind of real danger from the monster's clumsy swipes, but he'd rather not have to scrape his knuckles raw trying to put down his opponent before Kouma finished with his.

_Whomp!_ Kouma staggered back as the magma elemental kicked him in the stomach, knocking him away but causing no real damage. The hellhound immediately assumed a boxer's stance, his arms up and ready to block.

His opportunity came as the female Enforcer sent her claws raking forward, and Kouma launched into a cross-counter that smashed a small crater into the yelping elemental's chest and had her staggering backward to gain space.

The magma elemental puffed thick smoke painfully as her wound slowly filled with molten rock and began to seal.

As her carapace was threaded with magma and made of relatively fragile igneous rocks, she lacked the resilience of her partner, and she felt every one of Kouma's blows acutely even while the earth elemental shrugged off Ranma's.

Luckily, however, she did have other abilities to compensate for her more fragile body.

Kouma eventually got bored of waiting for the Enforcer, and darted forward with a straight punch that slammed into her left shoulder with agonizing force.

Fighting through the pain, the elemental's right hand seized onto Kouma's wrist tightly, the claws digging easily through the fabric of his uniform and into the flesh beneath.

The hellhound snarled angrily, pulling back his free hand to pummel his foe like before.

This time, however, the Enforcer suddenly spat a small glob of magma that struck Kouma right on the bridge of his nose, immediately sticking over his eyes.

"GAH! Ow! Not the eyes!" Kouma growled as he writhed in pain, trying to wipe away the molten rock. Even at this heat, the lava wouldn't do any real damage, but it was more than enough to hurt when applied to a sensitive area.

Seizing on her chance, the magma elemental pulled back her head and then slammed it into Kouma's face, the impact eliciting a small explosion not unlike the popping of a cherry bomb.

Kouma rocked his head back, pain overwhelming his senses as he started beating at the obsidian claws that held him immobile in an effort to get free.

Yukari frowned as she watched the battle, though she made sure to keep a constant flow of energy to the illusory wall with her wand. "I think it's about time to call in the reserves. Kurono! Go!"

The succubus blanched immediately. "What? No! Since when do you get to order me around like that?" she demanded angrily.

"You have a valid point," the young witch admitted. "Aono! Order Kurono to attack! Go!"

Tsukune shook his head. "No, I think they'll be fine. Besides, it's important that we make this the fight club's battle, not ours," he reasoned.

Kurumu breathed a sigh of relief. She was in no hurry to fight someone that Ranma had trouble taking down, and what little she had seen from Kouma impressed her as well, even if he had hit a tough spot in his battle.

"If we fight them, then we make ourselves targets," Tsukune said as he watched the earth elemental roll into a spiked ball and start trying to roll over Ranma. "The fight club presents a united front to defy them, so they should be safe from retribution." He was worried about the comment from the magma elemental about the Enforcers killing off the fight club, but that only strengthened his resolve to see his plan through.

Yukari snorted. "Spineless cretins. The Protection Committee punishes harmless violations and extorts money from weaklings, but flee the moment an actual threat to school safety appears."

"It's actually kind of human of them," Tsukune admitted blithely.

Kouma snarled as the magma elemental belched thick black smoke in his face, trying to keep his senses off-kilter while she grappled with him. The Enforcer knew she was ultimately the weaker of the two, and so kept pressing her surprise advantage as much as she could, trying to prevent the hellhound from properly using his fighting skills again.

The smoke, however, didn't even have the mild effect that the magma did, and the elemental hissed fearfully as Kouma inhaled deeply, his body actually relaxing somewhat at breathing in the soot-ridden cloud.

Then his cheeks puffed up, and the hellhound spat out a howling fireball at point-blank range.

_BWOOM!_ Elemental and hound were flung away from the force of the blast, the former rolling painfully along the floor, while the latter hit the ground on his feet and leaned forward as he skidded backward across the scorched tile floor.

The magma elemental scrambled to get to her feet, idly noting that for some reason there were floating fire extinguishers putting out the fires left by the explosion.

Kouma took a deep breath as he wiped the last of the molten rock from his eyes, feeling invigorated by the hot, ashen cloud that had been vomited into his face. "Heh... doesn't seem like our powers work on each other, does it?" he asked casually as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, a grin on his face as he watched the floating fire extinguishers that Yukari was making put out the residual flames from his attack.

The magma elemental gulped as she got up, injured from the earlier assaults but clearly unharmed from the fireball.

Ranma, meanwhile, was grimacing as his own opponent rolled across the length of the hall, curving and zig-zagging in his crystal-covered boulder form. Long lines of holes had been punched into the floor to mark the elemental's path, and the few points in which the Enforcer had ventured close to the wall were marked by long, ragged tears in the wood.

'Not making much progress here,' Ranma thought ruefully as the elemental started to pick up speed toward him, his path marked by the constant _Pock!-Pock!-Pock!_ of its crystal spikes puncturing the flooring.

The pigtailed boy noticed that the path behind him led directly into the illusory wall being held up by Yukari, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Knock it off, freak!" Ranma shouted as he launched himself forward, putting as much energy and momentum as possible into a single kick into the side of his foe, "I'm here for a fight, not pinball!"

_CRACK!_ The kick sent the elemental reeling sharply to one side, and an incredulous cry came from the spike-covered sphere before he slammed hard into the wall, pinning himself there.

Ranma winced as he pulled his leg down, noting a shallow gash where one of the spikes had managed to nick him. The kick itself had hurt, too; he had no illusions that he'd recovered fully from the fight with Moka that morning.

"D-Damn... you won't... get away with... that..." grumbled the earth elemental as he started the sensitive process of trying to uncurl himself while at the same time extracting his numerous crystal spines from where they had become embedded in the walls.

"Of course I will," Ranma said, grinning as he suddenly leapt across the hallway... straight toward the magma elemental.

Said elemental was still staring down Kouma when Ranma landed on her head, eliciting a yelp from the female Enforcer before he used her obsidian skull as a springboard to launch himself toward Kouma.

_Clap!_ Ranma slapped his palm against Kouma's as he darted past, and then an explosion of flames consumed the hellhound as he suddenly sprouted thick black fur and doubled in mass and volume.

The magma elemental yelped as Kouma rushed forward, thick ropes of lava-like saliva running from between teeth like ivory daggers.

She managed to throw herself to the side in time to avoid the hound's lunging attack, which was successful in large part because Kouma made no such attack and bolted straight past her.

As she turned to stare at the retreating canine, comprehension dawned.

"Wait! I'm fighting the other one now? The one who isn't a fire base?" she hissed in confusion that gave way to excitement. "Finally! That means I can use my..."

As she turned around, the magma elemental's excitement waned quickly as she stared into a veritable storm of blue energy surrounding the pigtailed boy, the aura suffusing the very air around him as he sculpted it into its customary projectile.

"W-Wait! Maybe we can work something out after all! It doesn't have to be like this!" the elemental said in a panic, her sense of subtle malevolence broken as dusty smoke puffed out her mouth and ear holes. "There's n-no need to go th-this far!"

"Save the hot air for someone who gives a damn!" Ranma shouted as he let fly with a ki bolt almost as tall as he was. "Mouko takabisha!"

The magma elemental tried to escape, but she was already on the floor and couldn't get her footing before the searing beam of blue power washed over her.

The earth elemental growled incoherently as he tore his arms free of the wall, shearing great strips of wood and wallpaper from the hallway as he unraveled his body.

He winced as he noticed several shards of crystal still embedded in the wall, and noted the prickling pain along his body where the spikes had snapped off.

"Probably shouldn't use that move in confined spaces," the lumbering Enforcer mumbled as he turned around to face his aggravatingly quick opponent once more.

He was extremely nonplussed to instead find a giant black hound growling at him, its jaws puffing clouds of black smoke wreathed with flame.

"This... is going to hurt, isn't it?" the earth elemental mumbled, releasing a hollow, rumbling sigh as a halo of fire swirled around the hellhound.

"BURN, cretin!" Kouma howled as a jet of fire blasted from his jaws and instantly engulfed the elemental.

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_PFFFFFFT!_ Yukari frowned as she watched the last of the fire extinguishers she had rounded up start to run empty as it spat carbon dust over the still-glowing form of the earth elemental.

"Yeesh. Your powers may be useful in a fight, but they sure are a pain to clean up after," the young witch complained to the giant black dog standing behind her.

Kouma dismissed the complaint, his tail lashing back and forth happily as he surveyed the scorched, unconscious body of his foe. "It feels good to let loose in your birth form after wearing that little body for so long!" He cheered, his voice a low rumble.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Ranma admitted as he finished wrapping up the cut on his leg.

When he finished tying it off and stood up, he noticed that everyone but Tsukune was looking at him with an intensely interested expression.

"I was talking about my cursed form!" He shouted quickly. "It's a pain fighting as a girl!"

"Sure it is," Kurumu said knowingly as she winked at him. "Anyway, those science geeks took off in a hurry, so now what?"

"Now we have two prisoners to squeeze information from," Tsukune said as he collected the empty extinguishers under his arm. "We need to find out who's in charge of intimidating the student council, and where we can find them."

Kouma raised a furry eyebrow as he sat on his haunches. "And why do we care about that? The student council is a bunch of useless nerds."

"But they're useless nerds with authority, right?" Tsukune asked uncertainly. "Maybe if we can get them to make a stand against the Enforcers, we can get they shut down."

"And why do we need to shut down the Enforcers?" Ranma asked, scratching his head. "I mean, let's be honest. That Haruo guy isn't exactly a threat." He could generally see why it would be a good idea, but it wasn't really in Ranma's nature to go out of his way to actually resolve a problem rather than simply fending it off whenever it posed an immediate threat.

Tsukune looked a bit flustered as he turned toward his roommate. "Ranma, they've been attacking you relentlessly, and they even came after me and the girls! You can't protect us all twenty-four hours a day!" Then he straightened. "Besides that, it's in the best interest of the school to have the Protection Committee's current leadership removed! You've seen what it's like: fights break out over the smallest things, villains run free without fear, and the weak are preyed upon relentlessly!"

Kouma sighed wistfully. "It's just like home..."

Yukari gagged as she stepped away from the hellhound, coughing up smoke. "Would you turn back into your human form, already? We're going to asphyxiate just from your breath!"

Kouma snorted disdainfully at the complaint, but did as he was asked, his body returning to that of a human in a curl of flame. Curiously enough, once the change was complete he was wearing his normal uniform again, which had mysteriously vanished in his true form. Tsukune filed the tidbit away for later.

"I'm still a bit confused," Ranma admitted. "Let's say we take out this OTHER Enforcer person that's bullying the council. You think they're suddenly going to turn on the Protection Committee?"

Tsukune nodded. "Hopefully they should do exactly that... but not just from having their personal thug put in the nurse's office. I want the fight club to guarantee their safety."

Kouma's brow creased. "Whoa... what? What's this, now? Why are we doing that?"

"The Enforcers are strong, organized, and have an official mandate to carry out their crimes," Tsukune explained to his increasingly confused friends, trying to draw their interest, "if you just beat them up, they'll still remain in power, and they'll either try to take revenge or simply avoid you in the future. If you try to have them ousted, they'll simply force the student council to rescind any order."

He shook his head. "We need to hit them from both fronts, attacking both their authority and their combat strength. And to do that, we need to give the student council a chance to stand up to them."

"Tsukune, that's brilliant! You're a genius!" Kurumu gushed, promptly hugging him from behind.

Kouma looked extremely uncertain, and he glanced at Ranma. "Wait, is this really happening? We're going to overthrow the Enforcers?"

Ranma shrugged. "I could think of worse ways to kill a week."

Just then, a dull hissing noise, like the last bit of steam being pushed through a kettle's spout, came from behind Ranma as the magma elemental groaned.

The female Enforcer's coal-like eyes fluttered open, and the magma elemental grimaced as she realized that her limbs were as stiff as the rock they were made out of.

"Well, look who's awake," Ranma said as he stepped up behind the Enforcer, standing over her head. "Good! I have a few questions I'd like to ask you, oh mighty protector of peace and order."

The elemental's response was to spit a gob of lava at Ranma's face in a show of defiance.

Ranma, being quite aware that the bubbling, molten rock could melt his face right off, backed his head away as the glowing gobbet shot up past him, and then plummeted back down.

_Spack!_ "Gah!"

Kouma snorted and tried to hold in laughter as the magma splattered onto the elemental's obsidian face, doing no actual damage to the creature's body, but decimating her desperately weakened pride.

"So! First question!" Ranma said without missing a beat as the Enforcer wiped lava out of her face. "Who's in charge of dealing with the student council in your little band of jerks?"

"Like I'd tell you that!" the magma elemental snapped. "You'll never get anything out of me!"

Ranma stared blankly into the cracked, vicious face of the Enforcer, and then frowned as he scratched the back of his head. "Well... I'm out of ideas."

The others sweatdropped at the pigtailed boy's helpless expression.

Tsukune in particular looked abashed. "Actually... I hadn't considered how we'd get them to talk," he mumbled quietly enough that the elementals couldn't hear.

"You people are pathetic," Kouma suddenly said, stepping toward Tsukune and yanking one of the fire extinguishers out from under his arm.

As Tsukune stuttered and started to protest, the hellhound walked calmly over to immobilized magma elemental, and then gave her a hard kick into her side.

"Gwah!" The elemental gasped in pain from the sudden gratuitous assault, and was suddenly silence in her pained grumblings as she found the mouth of an extinguisher shoved in-between her thick, arrow-shaped teeth.

"All right, let's try this again. Only this time, if you don't say something we like, I'm going to fill whatever seething hot organ passes for lungs in your freaky magic body with extinguisher foam and put out your core," Kouma's smile was all pointed teeth as the elemental's glimmering red eyes widened. "Feel like talking now?"

Kurumu looked fairly surprised by the turn of events, and glanced at Yukari before she leaned over and whispered into the witch's ear. "Hey, can he actually do that?"

"Probably not. Not with extinguisher foam, anyway," Yukari whispered back, scratching her head under her hat.

Kurumu frowned and then whispered to Tsukune, "Aren't those extinguishers empty, anyway?"

Tsukune nodded. "Pretty sure."

"Whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute! We don't need to kill anyone, here!" Ranma said suddenly, grabbing Kouma by the shoulder.

The hellhound shook off his partner roughly, giving the pigtailed boy a warning glare. "Back off, Saotome! I'm sick of playing games with these losers! Either they talk, or we off them and find some OTHER losers who will!"

"Are y-you crazy?" hissed the magma elemental around the nozzle stuck in her mouth, "if you kill us, nothing will save you from the wrath of the Enforcers!"

"Well, then I guess it's in everybody's best interests for you to start giving us answers, isn't it?" Kouma snarled while Ranma watched pensively.

The elemental sputtered for several seconds as tiny droplets of glowing lava sprouted from cracks in her skull and slowly crawled down the jagged planes of her face in imitation of a cold sweat.

"All right! Fine! I'll tell you what you want to know!" the Enforcer wailed, trying to spit out the extinguisher nozzle. "Just get this crazy mutt away from me!"

"What did you call me?" Kouma demanded, his eyes flaring a bright red as he shoved the extinguisher back into the elemental's face.

"That's enough! Knock it off! She said she'd spill!" Ranma protested, kicking the extinguisher away before pushing Kouma back roughly.

The elemental panted weakly before she hesitantly spoke to Ranma. "The Enforcer in charge of dealing with the student council is a senior named Volos."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "What kind of a name is that?"

"I don't know; he's not Japanese," the elemental hissed. "He's a hydra. Huge, resilient, and deadly. You won't get off so easily if you tangle with him."

"And he deals with the council?" Ranma asked, unfazed by the revelation.

"He's actually PART of the student council. He's the official Enforcer 'representative' on the student council, a special unelected seat," the magma elemental said. "He brings up our concerns to the council and answers to the council's concerns about the Enforcers."

"In theory," Kouma snorted. "In reality he brushes off the complaints and tells the student council how much money the Enforcers want from them, right?"

The magma elemental turned her head away. "Like I know. That sort of thing is over my head."

Ranma crouched down next to her, balancing on the balls of his feet. "Okay then. I have something else I want to talk about: what's the deal with that Haruo guy?"

The elemental's face made a strange shift that vaguely reminded Ranma of an eyebrow rising. "The gargoyle? What about him?"

"He keeps trying to get at me," Ranma explained, rubbing his head, "and the last time he targeted my friends. I'd prefer he stop before someone gets seriously hurt. Or rather, before HE gets seriously hurt."

The female Enforcer snorted. "The friends of criminals are no better than criminals themselves. As for you, it would seem we should have taken Haruo's concerns more seriously. You won't escape our wrath forever!"

"Sure I won't," Ranma mumbled, walking around the other end of the magma elemental and then grabbing onto one leg. "Kouma, can you take care of that other one? I'll see you tomorrow."

Kouma shrugged as he fished a cigarette out of his pocket. "Fine with me." With a snap of his fingers, the end of the cigarette lit aflame, and he gave the earth elemental a swift kick before he started dragging it in the opposite direction from his partner.

Tsukune had been quietly consulting with Yukari about the elemental's information, though he took a moment to watch Kouma leave.

"He knew that the extinguisher was useless when he threatened her, didn't he?" Tsukune asked, shaking his head. "You know, I'm kind of surprised. He's really turned himself around. I thought he was just another short-tempered thug, but I guess he isn't so bad after all."

Yukari shrugged. "He's still a far cry from a proper familiar, but I suppose he has his uses."

"You could try thinking of him as a person rather than just a tool," Tsukune deadpanned.

"A dog is still a dog, even if it breathes fire," Yukari said haughtily as she tore a picture out of the school yearbook. "He has to earn respect with work and loyalty, like the rest of them. Besides, how can I take him seriously when he still contests that he isn't Senpai's pet? Right, Senpai?"

Yukari turned toward where Ranma had been interrogating the magma elemental, and was surprised to see that he and the prisoner had left while they were talking. It was evident that the Enforcer had been dragged away through the halls, as there were long burn scars on the tile floor along with small dollops of rapidly cooling rock.

"Where did Senpai go? We haven't even worked out our next strategy for this half-baked plan of yours," Yukari said, turning toward Tsukune.

Tsukune, who had long since grown jaded to the barrage of casual insults, shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure. I guess he left to take the magma elemental somewhere." He frowned. "I hope he's careful with her. If he leaves her somewhere where she'll start a fire, I'm not sure there are enough extinguishers left in the building to put it out."

hr

"So... do you want to tell me where you're taking me?" the magma elemental hissed, having been unusually quiet for a creature being dragged around against its will.

"Somewhere where you'll do some good," Ranma said as he pulled the surprisingly light monster along behind him. "At first I thought of dumping you in the pool, but after what Kouma said about your core or whatever, that might kill you. I'm not real fond of you Enforcer jerks, but none of you have done anything bad enough for me to kill you."

The magma elemental was silent for several seconds, wondering at the uncommon show of mercy. The Enforcers were not only aligned against the fight club, but they had targeted Ranma personally, and yet he didn't think that deserved a lethal response?

She thought back to how he had stopped the hellhound from using the fire extinguisher. 'Either he's far more soft than I imagined... or...' her glowing red eyes slowly widened. 'Or perhaps... he's a creature of such fearsome power that he doesn't even see our assaults as a mortal threat?'

"Well, we're here!" Ranma said cheerfully.

The Enforcer craned her head, and then raised an obsidian eyebrow as she stared at the interior of a large concrete room full of massive steel containers. They were each full of trash, and sorted appropriately.

"I figured you might as well save someone a trip to the incinerator while I get rid of you!" Ranma said as he suddenly swung the elemental into the air, sending the monster flailing through the air before she smacked against the lip of the container containing the burnable trash and tumbled inside with a cry of pain.

After a few seconds, a lick of flame appeared atop the garbage pile, and after a few more - amidst the elemental's muffled, enraged shouts - the entire top of the dumpster was ablaze, pouring thick black smoke into the room.

Ranma stepped out quickly after the inferno built up, wary of the sudden build-up of smoke.

"Well, now that that's taken care of... I think it's time for another nap," the martial artist decided as he turned toward the dorms once again. "Man, either the fights are getting harder or I'm getting lazier. Feels like I spend more time sleeping off bruises than I do going to class."

"It's a habit you should work to correct, to be sure," said a familiar voice from behind him.

Unlike the members of the exploration club, Ranma showed no fear as he turned and waved absently to Jadeite, who was standing behind him with bandage wrappings over his face.

"Hey Professor. What's up? Classes were canceled today, right?" Ranma asked.

Jadeite was clearly annoyed by the way his sudden appearance hadn't ruffled his student one bit, but brushed it off. "Actually... I need to ask you a question."

The Dark General coughed lightly into his fist as Ranma waited patiently. "The... individual who took me by surprise earlier. The one with the fire attack. Who was he?"

Ranma was silent for a short while before he asked. "Are you asking because you want to congratulate him for earning your respect and maybe take him on as an apprentice or something?"

Jadeite's eyebrow twitched. "NO. That is not why I wanted to know his name."

"In that case, his name is Saffron," Ranma said immediately.

"Noted. My thanks, Saotome," the Dark General said just as quickly, turning on his heel and marching away.

As he watched the emotionally unstable instructor walk away and the reality of what he had just done had settled over him, Ranma felt a small pang of something deep within, agitating his mind with thoughts of possibilities as of yet unexplored, mistakes made, and opportunities missed. Almost at once, he grasped onto the feeling, and his course of action became clear.

"I think I'll go eat lunch before I fall asleep, actually," he said, making a turn away from the exit and heading back into the school building.

hr

End Chapter 8

"I have had enough of this," snarled Saffron as he slammed shut the door to his room, moving past his bed and opening his dresser. "I will not tolerate such disrespect any further! This school of mongrels can sink into the abyss for all I care!"

Muttering furiously, the Phoenix King rummaged through his dresser for several seconds before pulling out a glass sphere slightly larger than a human head, and then set it gently upon his bedspread.

Calling two small embers to the palms of his hands, he slowly drew a very deliberate circle of burning red power in the air around it, feeding his diminished energy into the sphere.

"Kiima! Answer me at once!" Saffron shouted, hopping up onto his bed as motes of light flashed into existence within the globe.

After several seconds, a hazy image started to coalesce within the sphere, and Saffron could just barely make out the image of Kiima's face within the magical ball.

"My Lord Saffron! Hello!" Kiima said, her voice garbled by the unstable connection established by the magical device. "How nice of you to call! I, uh... I wasn't expecting you to contact me again so quickly!" she said, sounding slightly panicked, for some reason.

Saffron scowled. "Kiima, this place is even more wretched than I imagined. You have no idea what it's like; having to live in this filthy hovel... sharing living space with abominations and freaks... and being constantly..."

He trailed off before he said "bullied", quickly realizing that it would be unseemly and undignified for the king of the Phoenix people to be abused by lower creatures such as his classmates.

"Let's just say that the students here are very... **rude**," he finally settled on, spitting out the word like a ball of poison.

"That's SO interesting!" Kiima said while she did something with her arms off to the side. It was hard to tell with the image being as unfocused as it was. "Oh! You said that Saotome was there too, right? Tell me all about that!"

The Phoenix king's scowl turned to a regretful grimace. "Saotome has... not been helpful. I tire of this place, Kiima. I am placing the order to have me retrieved."

"R-Retrieved? But my lord! You've barely been there a week!" Kiima protested before she quickly turned her head and whispered something over her shoulder.

"Nonetheless, I won't be able to stand another at this rate," the child-like king muttered. "Is there someone behind you?"

"NO! Uh, I mean, it's just a servant! You know how they get in the way sometimes!" Kiima said.

Saffron frowned. The longer she kept talking the better the resolution in the sphere became, and he could now hear the nervousness in his servant's voice. "Hold on, Kiima."

Placing his hand atop the globe, he caused the image within the artifact to expand, revealing several men in utility jumpsuits behind Kiima all working around a piece of enormous machinery.

Staring at the large device, and in particular the huge metal grill on the front, Saffron felt his heart sink into his stomach. "Is that... a heater?"

Kiima froze as she realized that she had been found out. "Uh... My Lord Saffron! I can explain! It's just a temporary countermeasure! Until you can return to your adult form, we'll make do with this poor and shabby - though surprisingly inexpensive! - substitute!"

"You... REPLACED me?" Saffron said, his eye twitching badly.

Kiima's image started to sweat. "Well, it's really more like-"

_FZZRT!_ Saffron jolted back as a black sphere of power suddenly smashed into the crystal ball, annihilating it completely and leaving a wide scorch mark on his bed sheets.

Whirling around, Saffron was quite surprised to see a man he'd never seen before stepping into his room from a black portal.

Jadeite frowned. "You don't look like the person I remember... although admittedly that was before the concussion. Nonetheless, etiquette requires I make sure: are you the fire-user that follows Saotome around sometimes?"

Saffron blinked. "I... suppose you could say that. Who arrrrRRAUGHYLAUGH!"

Jadeite watched contemptuously as his victim melted while still alive, the Phoenix king's innate fire resistance doing nothing against the otherworldly powers commanded by the Dark General.

And then Jadeite turned on his heel and stepped back into the portal, just missing a bright flash behind him that heralded the rebirth of the Phoenix.

Absolute silence dominated the room as Saffron's egg rested in the center of the floor, sitting within a circle of ash and crackling black lightning.

"Maybe I'll just stay in here," Saffron mumbled wearily.


	10. It's Not Libel if it's True

"Hello everyone! Are you ready for another chapter of supernatural slapstick and pointless violence?" Cheered Shizuka Nekonome as she gestured wildly for no apparent purpose.

"Well, we've had some time for new developments and new characters, so it's time to return to our old time sink: guessing Ranma Saotome's species!"

Shizuka smiled brightly as she flung her arm to the side. "Today we're fortunate to have someone relatively close to our subject: the hellhound Kouma Gamaroshi! And although he's due for punishment both for traipsing about in his monster form and smoking within fifteen feet of a building entrance in violation of the school code, we'll put that aside for now so that we can have his input!"

"Why do we even have smoking rules?" Kouma grumbled, his hands in his pockets as he stood nearby. "Half the student body is probably immune to poisonous smoke anyway, and some of them don't even breathe."

A vein popped up on Shizuka's head. "It bothers the rest of us! Now give us your best guess as to Ranma's species."

Kouma frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, I know that he spent a lot of time in the human world, which is probably why he's so good at fighting in that form. So he's probably a type of monster that gets on well with humans naturally."

Then he smirked. "He's also got four women back home, which either makes him some sort of seduction monster... or just a pervert, like Gin."

Kouma's expression became more serious. "As much as I'd like to write him off as a lech, he sure doesn't act like it, even when he's hanging out with that top-heavy chick with the blue hair. So I'd have to guess he's an incubus."

"Based on his girlfriends?" Shizuka asked. "But don't lots of monster species practice polygamy? Even hellhounds have alpha males, right?"

Kouma flushed slightly as he turned his gaze away. "You're thinking of werewolves. Hellhounds... don't really do the pack mating thing."

"Really? How does it go, then?" Shizuka pressed.

Kouma hesitated for several seconds before he said, "Well... I suppose you could say we do... arranged marriages," he hedged.

Shizuka frowned. "Isn't that kind of an odd tradition to have in Hell? What is it actually called?"

Kouma was once again silent until he lowered his head in embarrassment. "Hellhounds are bred, all right? We have breeders that pair us up."

Shizuka snorted as she tried to stifle a laugh, causing Kouma to flush deeper. "I'll bet there's a humiliating and hilarious story that goes with that confession, but you're not important enough to spend any more time on. Sorry!"

The homeroom teacher whirled around as Kouma seethed quietly behind her. "Another possibility explored! But only time will tell if it's correct! Until we meet again, enjoy the story!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

There seems to be a perception problem when people read about Ranma and Tsukune. Ranma beats people up that annoy him and pretty much ignores people that don't. Tsukune convinces people through heartfelt emotion and pure charisma to do things that are usually in their best interests, but don't occur to them. Why is TSUKUNE the asshole?

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 9  
It's Only Libel if it's Not True

* * *

"I still think you should go see Miss Madaraki anyway, Ranma. She was talking about how your injuries could have lasting complications if you never have them treated properly." Tsukune led the way out into the halls of the dorm as Ranma followed afterward,shutting the door behind him.

"Don't worry about it, man. I've shrugged off WAY worse than Moka's little kicks," the martial artist boasted. A small spider - small by Youkai's standards, for it was still as large as a healthy adult tarantula - was mounted on his shoulder, looking for all the world like it belonged there.

And Tsukune supposed it did, in a way. Ranma's pets-slash-bodyguards had grown completely accustomed to human company, and somehow Ranma had even taught them to keep to a single corner of the room, as per Tsukune's request the previous morning, rather than wandering all about the dorm. Tsukune could now easily admit that the abnormal arachnids had become a normal and accepted part of their dwelling.

Shaking off that line of thought, Tsukune once again tried to appeal to Ranma's almost negligible sense of physical vulnerability. "The fighting might get harder from here on out, you know. The fight club is probably going to be dealing with the Enforcers frequently from now on."

Ranma smirked. "I hope so. I don't know how I'll keep my edge if your girlfriend is the toughest challenge around this dump."

Tsukune's face fell at the reminder of Moka's transformation the previous day. 'Okay, fine. So I'll have to appeal to something other than his common sense...' Tsukune didn't really want to do this, but his friend had left him no choice, and he took a deep breath before continuing.

"Well, I suppose it's for the best that you don't go after all. You miss homeroom so often, Miss Nekonome has started asking me if you transferred out of her class or something. She'll probably need to do PRIVATE TUTORING with you so that you can catch up."

The response was predictable and instantaneous. Ranma froze stiff, and the spider on his shoulder bristled in agitation.

"You know, I was feeling a BIT stiff from all the bone fractures," the pigtailed boy said, failing utterly to sound casual as a cold sweat broke out on his brow. "And a visit to the nurse is an excused absence, right?"

Tsukune nodded knowingly. "Of course. I'll let Miss Nekonome know that it can't be helped this time."

"Thanks buddy, you're a life saver," Ranma said, looking relieved. "Hey, can you take her with you? The nurse probably doesn't want the little buggers crawling around inside the office."

Tsukune was about to ask what Ranma was talking about when he suddenly saw the spider arcing through the air toward him.

It was as gentle a toss as Ranma could manage, surely, but Tsukune still yelped and almost stumbled as he barely managed to catch the hairy little beast in his cupped palms.

"Whoa! Hey! Be careful!" The younger human protested, his nervousness rising as the spider immediately started crawling up his arms.

"Don't worry, she won't get hurt if she falls. I'll see you after class, okay?" Ranma said as he turned and started to walk off.

Then he stopped suddenly, frowning.

"Something wrong?" Tsukune mumbled, his eyes locked fearfully on the spider crawling onto his shoulder. Just because he was used to the giant spiders didn't mean that he was okay with them touching him.

Ranma turned around and walked up to a metal vent set in the wall before knocking on the grate.

_Clang! Clang!_ "Yo, Mizore! Come on out for a sec!"

Tsukune was about to ask who Mizore was when the grate slowly pushed open and a head of mussy light purple hair poked out.

"... Yes?"

Ranma gestured to Tsukune. "Mizore, this is my roommate and best friend, Aono Tsukune... But then, you probably knew that already, huh?"

Mizore nodded quietly.

"Right. Tsukune, this is my stalker, Shirayuki Mizore," Ranma continued.

"Oh! It's nice to meet you!" Tsukune said politely, bowing slowly as the spider climbed up onto his shoulder. "Wait... Stalker?"

"Yeah. She's not that great at it yet, but she's been practicing an awful lot, so she'll get better," Ranma reassured him as Mizore gave a silent thumbs-up.

'Ah, but how typical, really. If giant spiders and deadly monsters don't bother Ranma, why would an obsessive teenage girl frighten him?' Tsukune figured.

"I was just wondering if you developed those pictures yet. I want to get started as soon as I can," Ranma said, eliciting confusion from both human and monster.

Eventually Mizore nodded. "They're in my room... would you like to see?" She blushed faintly.

"Yeah, I'll meet up with you after class," Ranma said. "Wait. You do attend classes, right?"

Mizore nodded slightly. "The same ones you do."

"Huh. That's some coincidence," Ranma said.

"No, I don't think it is..." Tsukune ventured.

"Well, I just wanted to ask. Catch ya later!" Ranma said, dashing off.

Tsukune watched Ranma leave silently, trying to focus on anything he could to distract himself from the feeling of the spider crawling up the back of his head and into his hair.

It was that mental directive that led him to turn suddenly toward Mizore, who was ducking back into the air vent.

"Wait, Shirayuki? Does that make you some sort of snow monster?" He asked. Her name, plus the fact that the local air temperature had dipped slightly the moment she appeared, allowed him to make the connection.

Mizore halted and gave the boy a guarded look before nodding. "I'm a snow fairy... So?"

"So, are you the reason that the central heating hasn't been working recently?" Tsukune asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Mizore frowned. "Are you the reason it's always so hot inside these vents?"

"Well, they're not made for people," Tsukune reasoned. "Why do you have to shadow Ranma, anyway? I don't think he'd mind being around you."

Mizore was silent for a long time as she stared at Tsukune listlessly. Then, finally, she spoke again. "If you play in the sun... sometimes you get burned."

And then the mysterious girl ducked back into the air vent, not waiting for Tsukune's reply.

"What does THAT mean?" The hapless boy murmured before he finally made his way to class, the giant spider still nestled comfortably atop his head.

* * *

"I demand to speak with Lord Kuyo immediately!"

Keito frowned in annoyance as the junior Enforcer in front of her stewed furiously. They were currently in the main offices of the Protection Committee, standing in front of Kuyo's personal office. The Enforcer in front of her, some elemental girl with an annoying voice, had showed up and started pestering her for access to the Protection Committee head first thing in the morning.

Kuyo rarely took visitors or petitioners himself unless they were either of personal interest to him or simply too powerful to rebuff, and this upstart was neither.

"Your demands will be taken into consideration, Kishia" Keito said negligently as she leaned against the door to the office and started inspecting her nails, "right after Hell freezes over. Don't think to give orders to ME, whelp."

Then she sniffed. "Also, you should bathe before showing up for duty. You smell like burnt trash."

Kishia the magma elemental seethed quietly before her superior, pushing down her anger. Although her initial urge was to smack Keito out of the way and barge into Kuyo's office, the Protection Committee didn't work like that; for all their laxity in enforcing the rules and stopping fights around campus, fighting other Enforcers was strictly forbidden and punishable by suspension from the Committee.

"There is a SERIOUS concern that he needs to be made aware of!" the frustrated elemental insisted. "The fight club has been revived! They're now attacking us openly around campus!"

Keito rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. I'll inform Kuyo when I feel it's an appropriate time to bring up how weak and incompetent you are to come on to your shift broken and smelly and full of worthless excuses. I'm sure he'll be VERY interested in how useless you are."

Steam literally started to blast from Kishia's ears at the dismissal. "You don't understand! After they beat us, they started questioning us about the student council! I think Volos might be in danger!"

Keito frowned and made eye contact with her subordinate once more. "And... WHY would he be in danger? Surely you didn't TELL them anything about him when they questioned you?"

"Urk." The elemental's frozen expression was as good as a confession to Keito.

"Well, it would seem I'll have to have that chat about you with Lord Kuyo sooner than I thought," Keito said, her eyes narrowed into slits, "cowardice, weakness, and now TREASON. Quite a laundry list of failures you have here, Kishia."

"It couldn't be helped! They were going to kill me!" Kishia protested.

"Your fear is no excuse for betrayal," Keito snapped. Much to the junior Enforcer's disgust, she could see Keito's incisors wiggling and shifting as they fought to retain their human proportions; Keito was normally quite cool-headed, but she had very powerful predatory instincts, and the urge to attack at the first sign of weakness sometimes made her human form slightly unstable.

"You don't understand at all! I was fighting Saotome Ranma! How was I supposed to beat him?" Kishia shouted, flinging her arms into the air angrily.

Keito bit back a rebuke as the name caught her interest. "Saotome? The same one that Haruo was raising a fuss about?" She snorted as her human disguise stabilized again. "I knew he'd fail. I wonder if the overgrown yard ornament is still alive?"

"Of course I'm still alive!"

The female Enforcers glanced to the side as the entrance to the lobby burst open, and a familiar and unwelcome young man stepped through. Haruo currently had one arm in a cast and sling, and there were bandage wrappings over his head, but the gargoyle immediately proved that he was still healthy enough to launch into an enraged rant.

"So now, NOW you understand what we're dealing with! Only after I launched an investigation, an attack, and an underhanded hostage scheme do mahrrrmhmm!"

Haruo stopped talking as a thick patch of sticky webbing covered his mouth, and he glared at Keito.

"This proves nothing that we didn't know before," Keito said, rolling her eyes as she brushed some threads of webbing from her mouth with a handkerchief. "If Saotome is such a problem, either remove him or avoid him. Kuyo doesn't have time to be bothered by such petty concerns."

"We can't do either if he's actively attacking Enforcers!" Kishia complained. "And with the fight club behind him, he may not even be the worst of our concerns!"

"And what WOULD be the worst of our concerns? What is the fight club going to do?" Keito asked, leaning to the side with a hand on her hip. "The worst they can do is attack our patrols as a show of strength. So what? Besides, their interests aren't so different from ours: shaking down the hapless weaklings that infest this school."

Then the senior Enforcer smirked. "The difference is that WE have a mandate. When we make our rounds, we're policing the campus. When those fighting buffoons do it, they're simply acting like the thugs they are."

Haruo gasped as he managed to tear through the threads holding his mouth shut with his good hand. "And what difference does THAT make if we can't beat them?"

"We CAN beat them, idiot," Keito snapped. "The fight club members are brutes that are more concerned with showing off their own strength than actually succeeding in whatever their moronic and short-sighted goals are. You don't fight enemies like that head-on; you wait for them to expose a weak point and then strike from darkness!"

"I tried that!" Haruo protested.

"And you messed it up grandly," Keito added. "You didn't wait for Saotome to expose a weakness, you grabbed blindly for one. Imbeciles who grope around in the dark are asking to get bitten."

Then she chuckled. "And boy, did you ever. I heard all about Miss Akashiya's little transformation."

Keito turned back to the magma elemental. "I will inform Lord Kuyo that the fight club is causing a ruckus again, and that you have failed him. While awaiting his judgment, I advise you think on how you might redeem your mistake. Haruo, as your failure amused me considerably, I'll neglect to mention your involvement in the ruckus yesterday."

The gargoyle bristled as the elemental sulked, though both Enforcers accepted the judgments without further protest as Keito turned away and opened the door to Kuyo's office.

The two junior Enforcers glanced at each other as their superior closed the door behind her, leaving the two battered monsters alone.

"I don't understand! Saotome is probably the single greatest threat to the supremacy of the Enforcers across the campus! Why won't she take action?" Haruo growled, slumping into one of the rather comfy lobby chairs.

"Cowardice, probably, same as she accused me of," Kishia spat. "For all her outward arrogance, she doesn't bother hiding her taste for guile. No doubt Miss Keito will be avoiding any personal confrontation with Saotome for as long as she can."

"Damn it! How can our superiors just let that pigtailed bastard walk all over the authority of the Enforcers like this? If we can't put a stop to one rogue student doing as he pleases, how can we show our faces on this campus?"

Kishia frowned. "I think you overestimate Saotome, actually." At seeing Haruo's confused expression, she elaborated. "In the end, he's just another powerful monster, right? Hardly any different from Chopper Rikishi or Kuyo himself."

She shook her head. "Before they realized that I was conscious again, I overheard some of the conversation that Saotome was having with that other kid... the unremarkable-looking boy."

Haruo raised an eyebrow. "Aono? What about him?"

"I got the distinct impression that Aono was... giving the others orders, actually," the magma elemental mumbled. "I couldn't really make out most of what he was saying, but he was talking about fighting the Protection Committee directly. And then once I woke up, he stepped back and Saotome and Gamaroshi started forcing information out of me."

Haruo blinked. "You think that Saotome is just Aono's henchman?"

"I can't confirm anything," Kishia admitted as she walked up to Haruo, staring hard into his eyes, "but Keito's right that Saotome on his own doesn't pose a threat to anything but our pride... and, well, I suppose our immediate good health." She cracked her back for emphasis, wincing at the popping noises that resulted. "But with that posse of his behind him, to say nothing of the entire fight club, they could end up destroying the Enforcers if we're not smart about this."

Haruo's expression turned grim, reluctantly accepting his comrade's logic. It was difficult for him to swallow that his hated foe Ranma might not be the biggest threat to him, but if there was a different - and hopefully much weaker - danger to the Committee then he had to take the chance to root it out. "What should we do?"

"I want to find out more about Aono," Kishia grumbled. "We should... I don't know... gather evidence, or search his dwellings, or maybe ask questions about him somehow... I'm not sure how to describe it..."

"Investigate?" Haruo said suddenly, causing the elemental's head to snap up.

"What?"

"I saw it marked and underlined in Lord Kuyo's dictionary, for some reason," the gargoyle said, idly scratching at his injured arm. "If we try doing that we could find out what Aono's intentions are and whether or not he's pulling the strings here. And then, we can either take him out, or hopefully convince Lord Kuyo that he's actually enough of a threat for him to take action."

Then Haruo grinned. "And I think I know just the fellow for the job..."

* * *

Ranma grunted quietly as Fran Madaraki tended to his injuries, the nurse's treatments constantly causing jolts of pain as she tugged shards of bone out from under his skin.

"Really, I'm quite impressed by your ability of self-diagnosis and treatment, especially if you didn't use any proper medical facilities, like you claim," Fran said conversationally as she made another incision right under his collarbone, "I'll barely even have to set the ribs in order to ensure a full recovery. You should still come by for treatment though, especially for bone fractures."

Ranma grit his teeth against the pain, marveling at how much more... agonizing modern western medicine was compared to Doctor Tofu's pressure point and chiropractic treatments. "Yeah, it's like I told you; this happens to me all the time, so I've learned to deal with it." Wincing again as the forceps dug under his skin, he finally asked, "By the way, don't you usually use some kind of painkiller or something when you do this?"

Fran blinked. "Don't worry, this treatment isn't nearly enough to cause any complications due to shock. And obviously your body produces endorphins at a highly accelerated rate, so the pain should subside without having to use any anesthetic."

Ranma sweatdropped at the explanation, wondering where the comfort of the patient came in.

And then something interesting occurred to him.

"Hey, you're a doctor, right?" Ranma asked suddenly.

"Technically I'm a biologist more than a doctor of medicine," Fran corrected as she removed another sliver of bone and put it into a shallow metal pan stained with blood. "My training and knowledge is equivalent to doctorates in the fields of general biology, biological chemistry, neuroscience, and genetics. I have lesser knowledge of anthropology, marine biology, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetic surgery to supplement my operational knowledge."

Ranma only understood a fraction of that, but he got the impression that the answer to his question was definitely "yes". "So you can tell the difference between species that you're operating on, and know what students are what?"

Fran looked up at the pigtailed boy. "I do, although such information is strictly confidential."

Ranma smiled as he pointed to himself. "What am I?"

"You're a human, of course. Possibly of an advanced genus, but I'd have to run a full genetic test battery to determ-"

The school nurse was interrupted by a whooping cry of triumph as her current patient threw his arms up in the air.

"YES! I knew it! You can tell I'm human!" He looked back and forth, searching for someone else in the office to share the news with. "You hear that? I AM a human!" Ranma shouted, seeing no one but figuring there must be SOMEBODY in earshot. "I'm a human! Miss Madaraki said so!"

"I know! Stop shouting!" yelled back Moka from the back room.

Ranma blinked in surprise and lowered his arms. "Wait... is Moka still in here?"

Fran nodded, glad that her patient had stopped making such a ruckus. "Yes. Some of her burns seemed resistant to her regenerative abilities. Although they are not dangerous, I wanted to keep her longer for research purposes."

'Burns resistant to her abilities? But she didn't get burned at all, did she?' Ranma thought as he glanced over toward the back room. 'I mean, the closest thing to a burn she took was from the wat-'

The pigtailed boy winced as the pieces fell into place. "Geez, who would have thought that water would be such a big deal? Well, to someone other than me," he mumbled.

"The reaction is very curious, I agree," Fran said as she popped an eyeball out of her skull and then replaced it with another one that had been modified to see through the skin into the musculature (a great convenience since the office was too small for a proper CAT scanner). "She claims the effect is neutralized by adding herbs to the water. This leads to me to theorize that purer types of water are absorbing a critical element in her dermal composition that isn't affected by supersaturated water. The herbs act as..."

Ranma shook his head weakly as Fran went on, delving deeper and deeper into details he couldn't understand.

What he DID understand was that Moka was still bedridden a day after his battle with her violent alter-ego, and that it was his fault.

The fight itself wasn't his fault, of course, since Evil Moka had just attacked him out of the blue, but the real Moka hadn't been involved in any of that; she didn't deserve the walloping he had given her. And yet, after the blows had landed, and after he had deliberately scorched her with her secret - though alarmingly common - weakness, it was the normal, harmless Moka who had to suffer the consequences of going head-to-head with the school's strongest fighter.

'Great. Now I actually feel guilty for defending myself from the bloodsucker,' Ranma thought as his expression darkened. 'I should have just listened to Tsukune and tried to stop the fight. Damn it.'

"All done," Fran said, alerting Ranma to the fact that she was now drawing the stitches over her incisions closed. "As I said before, in the future you should see me immediately after being injured. Your skin heals at an absurd rate, and it's both hazardous and inconvenient to have to perform a minor surgery like this."

"Yeah, okay. If you say so," Ranma grumbled, his mood noticeably worse even though he had finally gotten someone else to acknowledge his humanity.

Remembering that particular point, he suddenly turned back to Fran as he slid off the office cot. "Hey, is there any chance you could tell my teachers that I'm human for me? They don't believe me when I tell them myself!"

"Well, of course they don't," Fran said, smiling slightly. "Your physical abilities are exponentially higher than that of the average human, and you're attending a school exclusively for monsters, after all. There's no way they'd believe you."

Then she tilted her head slightly to one side. "As for your first request, I'm afraid it's impossible. That information is confidential."

Ranma's face darkened yet again. "What? But I don't care if you tell them! I want you to!"

"The confidentiality has no bearing on the student's wishes, I'm afraid. These rules come directly from the headmaster," Fran explained pleasantly, apparently unaware of her patient's distress.

"Then... do you have any idea why I'm here at Youkai Academy?" Ranma asked, searching for any other piece of useful information he could pry out of the nurse. "You said yourself that it's a school only for monsters, so what the heck?"

Fran tapped her chin thoughtfully as she considered the question. "I do have a theory..."

"Well? What is it?" the martial artist asked eagerly, leaning over the nurse.

Fran took a moment to once again exchange her eyeballs, returning her vision to normal while Ranma waited to hear her idea.

"Youkai Academy's ultimate goal is monster integration. It is with this ideal in mind that the students here are taught how to fit in human society and learn to blend into civilization."

Ranma nodded. "Believe me, some of 'em really need the help."

Fran nodded, smiling. "Yes, they do. So it stands to reason that if you're here at Youkai Academy, you too need to be taught how to act like a human."

There was a long, empty silence in the nurse's office as Ranma's hope and curiosity slowly died.

"What?" he mumbled weakly.

"Things such as basic history, social mannerisms, and most importantly, conflict resolution that doesn't involve snapping the other party in two are all part of fitting in with modern human civilization," Fran explained. "From my own observations, you're here to learn these things."

"But... I'm FROM a human civilization," Ranma protested.

Fran gently took his hand and gazed up into his eyes, her own (apparently replaceable ones) full of hope and determination. "And some day, with work and guts, human civilization will take you back! Don't give up!"

"I... it's just... but..." Ranma stammered pathetically as Fran let go of his hands, unable to think of a defense. "I'm not... THAT bad, am I?"

Fran considered the question. "Was there a particular reason you were sent here? You didn't just pick up a pamphlet for Youkai Academy off the ground, did you?"

Ranma looked nervous as he replied, "Uh... there was some fuss over me destroying a mountain-no! Wait! I only HELPED destroy the mountain! It wasn't even inhabited or anything, probably!"

The school nurse nodded reassuringly. "I understand. However, mountains are very large and at times important terrain features. They provide convenient and often historically significant landmarks, host a great deal of biodiversity, and can be a great boon to industry as well when used for logging or mining. As a human, you should be more cognizant of the consequences of destroying them."

Ranma lowered his head sheepishly. "Oh. I... I didn't know mountains were such a big deal."

Fran smiled angelically as she patted Ranma's head. "And it's lessons like this that we hope you'll take back with you when you're finally ready to re-enter society."

The pigtailed boy looked somewhat defeated, but also strangely determined as he stood up and walked out of the office, thinking hard on what he had been told.

"Did you seriously just have to explain to him why massive collateral damage is bad?"

Fran turned her head to see that Moka had stepped out of the back room, still dressed in the loose hospital gown she had been given.

"I do hope I explained it correctly. I've never been a particularly good teacher," Fran said, looking worried as she got up to meet the vampiress.

"I just think it should be pretty self-evident why destroying MOUNTAINS is wrong," Moka grumbled as Fran started to look over her burns. "There's something the matter with anyone who thinks causing that kind of damage is okay."

Then the vampiress glared down at her Rosario meaningfully. "Don't you agree?"

_'Oh, cry me a river, you wimp. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, right?'_ Moka's darker self retorted. _'Thus it follows that you can't smash Saotome flat as an omelette without breaking a few classrooms that happen to be in the way. That jerk IS pretty fast.'_

Moka's eyebrow twitched. 'Why am **I** the one taking classes here, again?'

"All right, I think I've gathered enough data by now," Fran said as she turned away from Moka and took the girl's clothes from a cabinet on the side of the office. "You're free to go, but please return immediately if you suffer any more water burns... or other severe injuries, of course."

Moka nodded gratefully as she took her shirt and skirt from the nurse and started to dress, periodically glancing around to make sure there was no-one coming into the office.

"And while I agree that Saotome's ignorance of the consequences of his violent conduct is generally detrimental to his societal status," Fran continued pleasantly as the vampiress dressed herself, "it's insignificant compared to the detrimental effect to your health caused by trying to fight him."

_'Ridiculous! That bastard was just lucky that there was water nearby!'_ Evil Moka growled.

Moka's eyebrow twitched again as she forced a smile to the nurse. "Of course, Miss Madaraki... it... won't happen again."

"I do hope that it doesn't," Fran said, her tone still quite pleasant, "because he could most definitely kill you. And while a vampire's cadaver would make for excellent research materials, your health and safety is technically my first priority."

Moka sweatdropped. 'Technically?' "All right, Miss Madaraki. I'll keep that in mind."

_'Who the hell does she think she's dealing with? That little human is no match for me!'_

Moka quickly finished buttoning her shirt and then made a dash for the front door, unsure as to how much longer she could put up with the Rosario's abrasive taunting before she started yelling at her jewelry; not only would such a scene be incredibly embarrassing, but she was reasonably sure Fran could have her committed if she were to have such a breakdown in the nurse's presence.

Fran watched her go, basking in the personal, humble satisfaction of a job well done.

"Well now, let's see what materials I've gathered this week," she said to herself as she picked up a clipboard laying on her desk off in the corner of her office.

She halted as she felt something odd along the edges, and an eyebrow rose as she observed some kind of sticky film that clung to her fingers as she pulled it away from the clipboard.

"A mucus discharge? No... the consistency is wrong. Then an epidermal secretion, as part of a membrane?" Fran frowned as she continued studying the goop. "How odd. I don't remember having any gastropodan patients... hmm..."

* * *

"By and large, the density of any given mass is affected by it's temperature," Richard droned as he scratched a piece of chalk across a board while facing away from his class. "The mass expands when temperature increases, and contracts when temperature decreases. For example..."

Very slowly and rigidly, Richard turned around to face his students.

"Let's say I were to freeze the interior of your lungs such that your breathable oxygen changes from a gas to a solid form; your lungs would instantly collapse from having the volume within them drop so rapidly. On the other hand, if I were to boil the fluids of your stomach into a gas, it would burst from the calamitous expansion."

Richard's cowl curved slightly as he grinned, a sure sign that someone was about to suffer soon. "Experiment time!"

The entire class groaned at the prospect of another "lab". They weren't hard at all, and actually provided quite a boost to the students' grades with very little effort on their part, but the labs inevitably involved one or more students being subjected to cruel, lethal magics, and Ranma hadn't shown up to stop or restrain their murderous professor.

Or at least, that's what the students thought before the classroom door opened up and the aforementioned aide walked in.

"Hey Prof, sorry I'm-"

Before Ranma could get another word out, Richard whipped around suddenly, his hands glowing a bright blue.

"Tardiness will be rewarded with PAIN!" The warlock howled as a lance of ice about the size of a man's arm sheared through the air in Ranma's direction.

_Thunk!_

Ranma blinked in surprise, and then craned his head upward where the icicle had embedded itself above the doorway.

"Still haven't gotten that fixed, eh?" Ranma deadpanned as he stared down at Richard's disembodied head. It had fallen off when the warlock had turned around, and was now rolling slowly across the length of the classroom toward his feet.

"White glue is such a hassle," the professor grumbled as his body started walking after it. "It takes forever to dry."

Before the warlock could pick it up, Ranma kicked the undead cranium up into the air and then grabbed it. "Here. I'll take care of it."

"Really? You will?" Richard asked, his body thrusting its arms up in triumph. "Thank goodness! The day's lesson is saved!"

There was a chorus of tired groans from the class as Ranma rummaged around in Richard's desk with his free hand, eventually pulling out a stapler.

"Wait. What are you planning to-"

Richard was cut off as Ranma slammed the warlock's head roughly onto the ragged stump of his neck.

_Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Chunk!_ Several students winced at the sound of staples being pounded into flesh, while the rest silently lamented that Richard's aim would be skewed no longer.

"There you go," Ranma mumbled as he finished the circle of crude metal stitches and gave the undead instructor a solid whack on the back of his skull to test the fix. "That should hold until the next time you piss off someone strong enough to do something about it."

"Yes, thank you," Richard said, his head rocking back and forth slightly but lacking any real flexibility. "You may take your seat, Saotome."

Ranma made his way to his desk, and then stopped in surprise as he saw a familiar and generally unwelcome face in the desk beside it.

"Saffron? I didn't know you were in this class," Ranma said as he sat down next to the Phoenix king.

"Yes, well... I only recently started actually attending my classes," Saffron grumbled. "Really, is this the sort of thing that humans have to go through every day? It's an enormous waste of time."

Ranma shrugged. "Well, human schools aren't EXACTLY like this. For one thing, at most human schools the teachers are only allowed to knock out the students, rather than murdering them outright," Ranma explained, recalling Ms. Hinako's habit of draining the life force of trouble-makers and delinquents.

Saffron considered the policy. "I suppose that would go a long way toward ensuring further tuition revenue. Professor Richard's methods seem rather wasteful."

"NO TALKING IN CLASS," a mighty, ghastly voice boomed, startling both martial artist and Phoenix from their conversation.

Richard's body was encompassed by darkness as a strange, neon-green energy leaked from his eyes like blazing tears. "YOUR... PUNISHMENT!" The warlock howled, throwing one arm forward.

Segments of sharpened bone appeared from the ether before linking themselves into a crackling chain, and then the skeletal weapon bolted forward through the air, eliciting an otherworldly howl as it streaked toward Saffron's shocked and terrified face.

_Thunk!_

Saffron blinked in surprise and relief as the bone spear embedded itself in the front of his desk.

Richard was silent for several seconds before he coughed and patiently clasped his hands behind his back. "Saotome, I think I'm still a little off-center."

"Yeah, I know," Ranma replied, clearly disinterested as he pulled out his science book.

Saffron snorted in annoyance. "It would seem you're out of violent diversions, Professor. Perhaps it would be best for you to continue your lecture."

Richard considered this, staring down at his hands as they practically seethed with arcane power.

Then he glanced up again. "Would anyone be interested in murdering a classmate for extra credit?"

By the time Saffron had finished murmuring "What?" the boy in front of him had turned around and yanked the bone spear out of his desk.

"GYURK!" Saffron gasped in agony as the spike punctured his chest, and glared hatefully at the offender as life leaked out of his grasp once more.

"Sorry about this," the other student mumbled as he pushed the spear further through his victim's ribcage. "I have practice in the afternoon, so it's hard to find time to study. Nothing personal."

"Hey, don't take it out on him because you can't keep up with class," Ranma complained, although he made absolutely no effort to help as his neighbor started to bleed out onto the floor.

"Would anybody like to take care of Saotome too?" Richard offered, glancing around the classroom. "Anyone? It's worth an automatic 'A' on the mid-terms!"

As Saffron's breathing weakened and he slowly slid out of his seat onto the floor, Ranma looked around at the surrounding classmates, all of them clearly avoiding eye contact.

"What? Nobody? No one at all?" Ranma asked with an annoyed grunt. Not that he wanted the class to descend into a murderous frenzy for their grades, but he was disgusted that his peers wouldn't even hesitate to kill off a little boy (albeit an annoying, nigh-unkillable, fire-wielding little boy) when they didn't have the guts to even try attacking him.

"An 'A' isn't worth much if you're dead," mumbled the boy who had impaled Saffron. Then, more quietly, he added, "besides, you're the best chance we've got of actually surviving until finals."

There were many nods of agreement from the surrounding students.

"All right class, that's enough," Richard said, clapping his hands together. "If we're done turning on each other for the sake of fleeting academic advantages, please turn to..." Richard trailed off mid-sentence as he stared at Saffron's desk. "Saotome? Did that pest next to you just turn into an egg?"

"Yeah. That happens whenever he dies," Ranma mumbled, looking disinterested as he thumbed through his science book.

"I was under the impression that life BEGINS with eggs, not ends with them," the warlock mused, rubbing his chin.

"What're you asking ME for? You're the science teacher!" Ranma countered.

"Whatever just happened has very little to do with science," Richard said.

"Well, you're also the wizard here, aren't you?" Ranma asked.

"Touche," Richard allowed. "Anyway, could you get rid of it? Having food items on the floor is a safety hazard."

"You're ALSO the biggest safety hazard!" Ranma complained.

"Look, I doubt we can keep that joke running long enough to really bite into our class time, so why don't you do your job, already?"

Ranma grumbled under his breath as he hauled Saffron's egg up onto his shoulder and carried it over to the window.

_Chak!_ Sliding the window open, he dropped the ornate egg outside, and then slammed it shut behind him.

"Thank you, Saotome. I presume that it landed on the ground and was smashed to bits?" Richard asked.

"Nah. I aimed for a trash bin," Ranma replied as he took his seat again.

"... Oh. I see," Richard mumbled, wondering if that was better or worse than his presumption. "Anyway, please open your books to page one-hundred eleven..."

* * *

Tsukune sighed wearily as he stood stock-still in the hall yet again in which was quickly turning from an embarrassing novelty into a major bother.

The fact that he had a pair of fine schoolgirl bosoms hanging in front of his face, almost brushing his nose, made little difference to his mood, nor did the other three unfamiliar girls that were giggling and making cooing noises while occasionally brushing against him.

Oh, sure, yesterday he had taken plenty of guilty pleasure in having random girls fawning over him because one of Ranma's spiders tagged along, but it had gotten old fast. Being immobilized for several minutes by people he didn't know, answering rapid-fire questions while the girls were hardly even listening to him, and then feeling the cold, displeased stares of Kurumu or Moka for several minutes afterward all put quite a damper on his short but frequent bursts of popularity.

Evening that out a bit was the fact that having one of the hairy fanged beasts on his head for so long had done wonders for his lingering fear of the creatures. Most of the time he had barely noticed that the arachnid was with him, and even on the occasions when it was disturbed it still hadn't bitten him or crawled down into his shirt like he had been afraid of.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I should be going now. I have to meet up with a friend of mine," Tsukune said apologetically after one of the girls asked to hold the spider. Neither Kurumu nor Moka were there at the moment, but he knew that if he waited long enough one of them were sure to catch him like this.

"Awww, okay," one the girls said reluctantly as she pouted. "You should bring him to class more often, though!"

"No, I don't think that's a good idea, Tsukune mumbled. "It doesn't get along with all the teachers." He had no idea what had possessed him to bring the giant spider to his homeroom class rather than bringing it back to the dorm, but the obviously well-trained little beast had been on edge the moment it saw Ms. Nekonome. Luckily it hadn't objected to being stuffed in Tsukune's book bag for the duration of homeroom, but he didn't want to think of what might happen if his feline-like teacher was exposed to it directly.

Tsukune was so distracted by thoughts of his innocent and plucky homeroom teacher being attacked that he didn't notice one of the girls that had been fawning approach him from behind as he walked away.

"Hey, don't be in such a hurry!" The girl said as she took Tsukune's arm, surprising him. "Let me come with! You're going to see Saotome, right?"

"Eh? How did you know?" Tsukune asked, genuinely surprised.

She giggled. "You two are always together. It's hardly a big secret. Just like it's not a secret that you and Akashiya are going out."

Tsukune turned red as a cherry as he started stuttering. "Wh-What? We're not dating or anything! Who told you that?"

The schoolgirl's eye gleamed mischievously. "Oh, okay! So I guess you're available!"

"Not to you, I'm not. Would you take a hint and back off?" Tsukune demanded, his voice razor-sharp.

Tsukune slapped his hands over his mouth as the girl recoiled, unable to believe that he had just said that. In fact, after giving it a bit of thought, he was pretty sure he HADN'T just said that.

"Geez, what's your problem?" The pushy schoolgirl snapped, backing away. "Fine then, jerk! I don't have to put up with this!" She snapped, whirling around before she stalked off.

Tsukune watched her go silently, his hands still clamped over his mouth. He might have tried to defend himself, but he had no idea what to say, and didn't trust his voice since it seemed to have acquired a mind of it's own.

He felt a tugging sensation coming from behind him, and he turned his head.

Kana stood behind him silently, her one visible eye staring at the young human impassively.

"Kana? Was... Was that you just now?" Tsukune demanded, cautiously taking his hands away from his mouth.

"..." Kana nodded as she mumbled something that he didn't catch.

"Don't do something like that without permission!" Tsukune complained. "You'll ruin my reputation!"

Kana shrugged, clearly not caring a whit. "Ranma," she said, speaking that one word clearly as she stepped aside, out of his path.

"Huh? What about him?" Tsukune asked. "I was just about to go meet up with him."

Kana simply nodded again, saying nothing.

"Ah. I think I see where this is going," Tsukune mumbled, continuing down the hall as Kana fell into step behind him.

The siren said nothing as Tsukune made his way down the halls toward the classroom where Ranma had the miserable fortune of sharing with Jadeite and the dubious fortune of sharing with Yukari.

Ranma and the aforementioned witch were standing outside the classroom door, engrossed in a conversation of their own as Tsukune and Kana spotted them.

"I guess I understand the logic behind making us identify magical girls and their weaknesses," Ranma mumbled as he looked over a sheet of paper, "but I don't get these models he's using for examples. They're all wearing the same little cheerleader outfit thing. Don't most devil hunters wield swords or dress as shrine maidens?" At the very least, that was HIS experience with such warriors in the past. "The Prof sure seems set on the whole 'magical girl' type, doesn't he?"

"Identify each target and list strategies for their downfall," Yukari read aloud from the assignment description. "Extra credit will be granted for appropriately graphic descriptions of their deaths."

"Why are they all named after planets?" Ranma continued, idly waving a hand toward Tsukune and Kana as they approached. "Do you think these are real people? The details seem way too specific."

"Methinks I'll skip next week's field trip," Yukari said as she shook her head.

"Hi Ranma!" Tsukune said as he came within arm's reach, "are you ready for tonight?"

"Of course I am," Ranma said, handing his homework to Yukari as the young witch continued perusing the assignment, "but just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, what's happening tonight, again?"

Tsukune's expression turned grim. "Today we have to strike back at the Enforcer that's holding down the Student Council, plus I need to speak to Miss Wildman."

"Oh, THAT. Right," Ranma mumbled, idly taking the giant spider from Tsukune's head at last. "Saving the school from corruption and tyranny. Yeah. We should probably do that right away, huh?"

Kana frowned slightly as she scooted over behind Ranma, throwing uncertain glances at Yukari.

Tsukune sighed as he finally went about smoothing his hair, which had spent the last few hours as a literal spider's nest. "You forgot, didn't you? Did you have anything else planned?"

The pigtailed boy gave a noncommittal shrug. "I thought I could do some training, is all."

It was about this time that Yukari noticed Kana standing demurely behind Ranma, and the young witch raised an eyebrow.

"Training for what? Aren't you already the best fighter around?" Tsukune asked, confused. Some might have mistaken the question as empty flattery, but after seeing Ranma fight Evil Moka to a standstill, he really couldn't imagine anyone ever beating the older human.

"Obviously," Ranma confirmed. "But those attacks of Moka's were actually pretty impressive. I thought if I could get some pictures of the battle, I might be able to figure them out."

That didn't make much sense to Tsukune, and he was about to argue the point further when Yukari cleared her throat.

"Not to interrupt," the young witch said, glancing at the purple-haired girl, "but who is this?"

Ranma snapped his fingers. "Oh! Right! You two haven't been introduced!"

He turned toward Kana and patted Yukari on the head, causing the young girl to brighten instantly. "Kana, this is Sendo Yukari. She's a runt, and has an attitude problem, but she does whatever I say so she's pretty useful to have around."

"Aw, Senpai, you're making me blush!" Yukari said, so giddy from the mild compliment that she completely failed to register the criticisms of her mind and body.

"Yukari, this is Kanade Kana. She's in my government class and sometimes helps me train the spiders. She's also a little bipolar." Kana winced at that, shrinking in on herself a bit.

"Ranma!" Tsukune chided. "Don't say that!"

"All right, fine," Ranma said, rolling his eyes, "so she's VERY bipolar. I was just trying to be nice."

"No, that's not what I..." Tsukune trailed off as Kana's face darkened. "Oh, never mind. She actually followed me here looking for you, you know."

"Really? What's up?" Ranma asked.

"..." Kana mumbled something totally incomprehensible to everyone else, but it had Ranma scratching his head.

"School newspaper? I didn't know we had a school newspaper," he said as the siren started sifting through her book bag.

"Wasn't that Miss Nekonome's club?" Tsukune asked, vaguely remembering something like that being mentioned before he had resigned himself to the indignity and hazards of the exploration club.

"It doesn't get much actually published; I heard that there's only one member in the newspaper club," Yukari said. "There was some thing with the Enforcers too, I think. Then again, most of the clubs have some kind of issue with the Enforcers, even if it's just complaints about bribes."

Kana pulled out a folded-up newspaper, and silently held it up in front of Ranma's face.

Tsukune grimaced as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Everything I've heard about the Enforcers involves them bullying someone or extorting money. This has to stop."

"Tsukune?" Ranma said suddenly.

"Yes?" The younger boy gave Ranma his full attention, noting that Ranma's hands were clenching the newspaper to the point of almost tearing it.

"We may have to go through with your plan without Kouma's help. He's going to be in the nurse's office for at least a day or so."

"What? They got Kouma?" Tsukune cried, grabbing the newspaper out of Ranma's hands and scanning the headline.

Seeing nothing but some sort of gossip piece titled "Rising Star of Freshman Class Claims Harem of Four in Human World," Tsukune gave his roommate a confused glance. "I don't get it; why would this mean that Kouma is injured? It's just a story about some womanizing jerk."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched.

Yukari popped up between Tsukune's arms as he held the paper, startling the boy as she began to read the article. "Elite fighter Saotome Ranma, undisputed champion of the freshman class, was revealed today by a trusted source to be engaged to several young women back in his hometown of Nerima, situated around the human city of Tokyo, Japan. Although it doesn't come as much of a surprise to hear that such a powerful monster has romantic attachments, the revelations have stirred new theories as to his species as they have opened up the possibility of royal lineage or possibly a pack leader mentality."

"Did... Did I say 'jerk'?" Tsukune asked, sweating slightly. "I meant to say... jock! Some womanizing jock!"

"Not helping," Ranma grumbled.

"Whatever the case, there has definitely been both great disillusionment and great admiration among the freshman class at the news that Mister Saotome is such a lecherous bastard." Yukari finished, pulling the newspaper out of Tsukune's hands entirely. "That last bit sounds a bit too much like the writer's opinion to me. It looks like there's an editorial section devoted to the story too. Page thirteen..."

"What the heck? The newspaper club doesn't have anything better to print than this trash? Who cares how many many fiancees I may or may not have?" Ranma complained, throwing his arms up in the air. "Moka turned out to be some sort of super-powerful fighter, students are fighting off the Enforcers, a tremendous spider is eating people, and the Dark Liege STILL hasn't found those really important soul jewels or whatever! But people are more interested in Kouma's gossip than any of that? Give me a break!"

Ranma probably would have continued on that subject, but Kana tugged firmly on his sleeve to get his attention.

"Explanation, please," Kana said simply, an unreadable expression on her face. It escaped nobody's notice that her voice was now perfectly clear and audible.

"I don't know anything about the soul stones, I swear!" Ranma shouted, much to confusion of everyone else. "They must have been planted there! I was framed!"

"I think she meant about the fiancees, Ranma," Tsukune pointed out, although he was quite interested in Ranma's unexpected protest.

Ranma blinked. "Oh. Is that all?" He snorted, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It's my Pop's fault. I don't even WANT to marry any of 'em. Half of them are arranged marriages and the other half are just people trying to impose themselves on me."

"But still, four? How do you end up with four girlfriends by accident?" Tsukune asked. Somehow, after he spoke, he got the distinct impression someone was laughing at him.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Ranma groused. "Look, can we go already? I need to see Mizore about those pictures I wanted."

"Mizore? That creepy ice girl?" Kana's attention was immediately piqued. "What about her?"

"Oh, you know her?" Ranma asked, seemingly oblivious to the distasteful expression on the siren's face. "She took some photos I think I could use to learn Evil Moka's moves."

"You can do that with a few pictures?" Tsukune asked, surprised.

Ranma shrugged. "I don't see why not. You'd be surprised what you can learn to do from a few stupid doodles on a scroll," the martial artist reasoned.

"Yukari? What do you think?" Tsukune asked, wondering what the girl genius had to say about something so outlandish.

"Some of the new theories are well-reasoned, but most of them are reading way too much into the harem thing. Just because senpai has that many girls doesn't make him a shikima. I don't even think he HAS tentacles."

Tsukune snatched the school newspaper out of her hands, an exasperated look on his face. "Let's just go."

* * *

Haruo grimaced as he observed a sticky film that stretched between his fingers, and sighed regretfully as he gazed at the shining splotches of goo that led back to the door in a series of footprints.

"Really, you MUST learn to perfect your human form, Kano," the junior Enforcer officer said, turning his head lazily. "It's a horrendous pain to get this stuff off of carpet, you know."

Nagare Kano stood in the middle of Enforcers' lobby, nervously glancing behind him at Kishia as the female Enforcer glared at him contemptuously. He was a weedy and suspicious-looking individual, with a skinny, frail body, freckled cheeks, and hair that was parted to cover his right eye. The more unusual - and frankly disgusting - aspect of the boy was that his skin was pale, clammy, and constantly seemed to secrete a foul-smelling, translucent film. In his hands he held a small digital camera, which he clutched tightly as if to protect it.

"I'm s-sorry. But it can't be helped, right?" Nagare stuttered, removing his backpack. "I got what you wanted. You're going to keep your end of the bargain, aren't you?"

"Of course I will," Haruo said negligently, stepping forward and cradling his injured arm. "In return for information about Aono Tsukune, I'll erase all evidence of your... 'transgressions', and I'll even look the other way if I happen to find you engaging in your hobbies in the future."

Kishia raised an eyebrow. "And what hobbies are those, Haruo?" she asked, not liking this one bit. The fellow that Haruo invited into their office gave off a distinctly... perverted vibe. Elementals didn't have much in the way of gender identity, but every bit of hers was telling her to pummel the slimy creep.

Haruo wasn't nearly as concerned; Nagare's crimes were simple acts of voyeurism, which was exactly the type of criminal conduct that the Enforcers sought out to earn bribes and favors. More importantly, such criminals were good at finding out information without being caught, which made them excellent spies.

"Don't worry about it, Kishia. Suffice to say, this one is no threat to our authority." He smirked as Nagare started rooting around in his backpack. "It is sometimes necessary to overlook a minor, harmless wrongdoing in order to put a stop to a greater threat. This is the sad, but difficult truth of justice."

"Exactly! I don't mean any harm!" Nagare said as he pulled out a manilla envelope and handed it to Haruo. "Besides, THESE findings would make you forget all about me, even if you hadn't agreed to do so!"

Haruo put down the folder, not wanting to have to handle it with his injured arm, and then slid a large photograph out to look at it. Kishia stepped up next to him, her interest piqued.

A vein popped up on the magma elemental's head as she stared at the photo. "Please explain, Mister Kano, how an up skirt shot of Miss Madaraki qualifies as a 'finding'!" she demanded, her voice an angry hiss.

Nagare looked startled as he dug into his backpack again. "Oops! Sorry! Wrong folder!" he said as he pulled out another one and laid it next to the first. "I'll just take that other one back and-"

As the peeping tom reached for the envelope, Kishia slammed her hand down on top of it, causing Nagare to flinch back. His fear quickly turned to sorrow as the envelope and the photographs started to shrivel and burn underneath the Enforcer's palm.

"Hey! Those are my treasures!" the voyeur complained as black smoke started to curl around Kishia's hand.

"Oh, relax would you?" Haruo mumbled as he reached for the new envelope. "I did say the evidence of your crimes would be destroyed, didn't I? You should be glad."

Taking a photo out of the second envelope, he pulled it out to see that it was a photograph of a paper document. "Hm? What is this? A medical record?"

"The medical records of one Tsukune Aono," Nagare said, wheezing slightly as he stared regretfully as the blackened cinders of his work. "It seems he escorts his friends to the nurse's office quite often, so Miss Madaraki gave him a checkup."

Haruo frowned as he looked at the body of the document. "Hmmm... tests are all negative... no bruising... no allergies... heart rate... blood pressure..."

The gargoyle looked annoyed as he finally turned toward Nagare. "So, what, you went through all this trouble to inform us that he's in good health? Are you an idiot? That's the problem we're trying to correct, if necessary!"

Nagare simply chuckled, baring his long, crooked teeth in such a way that Kishia shuddered. "You missed the most important part. Look near the top. I think you'll see something very interesting about Aono. Something that the Enforcers would probably want to deal with directly."

Haruo raised an eyebrow as he glanced back up at the top of the page. "Name: Aono Tsukune. Age: 15. Species: Human. Blood Ty-"

His breath caught in his throat as he realized what he had just said, his eyes snapping back to the "species" column.

Kishia's eyes bugged out. "Human?" she hissed. "He's a human? That's impossible!"

Nagare grinned as he shrugged. "It's right there in black and white. I can't say whether Aono is a mastermind pulling the strings of the fight club like you suggested, but that becomes perfectly moot in the face of this tidbit, doesn't it? He doesn't belong here; the penalty for a human entering Youkai Academy-"

"Is DEATH," Haruo growled, his hands clenching the photograph tightly. "There are still so many questions... but with this, we can end it. We now have the proof we need to convince Lord Kuyo that the situation is indeed serious."

Kishia nodded, flexing a hand into a fist as seams of glowing red embers spread over her arm. "To think there was such a dangerous enemy right under our nose..." she shook her head. "Of course, this still means that we'll be stuck with Saotome and the fight club."

"Oh, don't worry," Nagare said, grinning horrifically, "you'll find that I dug up a little dirt on Saotome as well."

Haruo's good arm practically ripped open the envelope in its haste to seize the remaining photo, and he held it up greedily before he began to read.

"This is Saotome's physical data! Of course! Now we know his species! He's..."

Kishia leaned forward expectantly as Haruo trailed off. "What is he? What? If we knew what kind of monster he is, we could find a weakness!"

Nagare chuckled. "That too, is unnecessary. As you can see, Saotome is a human! Just like Aono!"

Kishia blinked. Haruo continued staring at the photo. Nagare's pleased expression slowly wilted, sensing something was wrong. "Uh... hello? That's what it says, right? You didn't get another one of my... uh... 'hobby pics' did you?"

Haruo snorted and tossed the photograph into the air. "Saotome Ranma is NOT human," he snapped.

Reaching his good arm back, his forearm bulged as his skin turned a rough granite gray and his fingers turned into talons. With a single swipe, he reduced the picture to shreds.

"Wh-What? How can you say that?" Nagare asked, shocked.

"That brute took down Saizo, Akashiya, Rikishi, and Kurono, as well as us two," Kishia snapped, a puff of steam blasting from her nose as she snorted, "and you expect us to believe he's a human? Are you making fun of us?"

Nagare recoiled. "But... But... the proof was right there! How come the school nurse's word is good enough to convict Aono but not Saotome?"

Kishia snorted, blasting out another puff of steam. "For the same reason we sent you after Aono in the first place, rather than Saotome: Aono is weak, but clever. Saotome is strong, but dim. We don't need proof to stop Saotome, we need an army!"

"Besides, the school nurse is obviously wrong. Seriously, what does she know?" Haruo said, his arm returning to normal.

"She has, like, four PhDs," Nagare mumbled, only to be completely ignored.

"The important thing is that Aono is brought to justice, and that his attempts to undermine our fine institution are halted! For accommodating that, Kano, I will consider our bargain complete!" Haruo said firmly. "Kishia! We must go see Keito at once. If THIS doesn't warrant Kuyo's attention, then nothing does!"

* * *

_Knock! Knock!_

Mizore jumped slightly at the sound of knuckles against her door, and she felt her heart start hammering against her chest.

'Is that him? He's here? Already?' Mizore thought, a flush coming across her face. It would have been difficult for an outside observer to tell that she was panicking, or even flustered, but Mizore was almost quivering as she reached for her popsicle that was sitting in a small dish on her night stand.

She had spent most of the day fretting about Ranma eventually coming to her room, such that she had even neglected to keep track of him. And while it would have made sense to most people that there was hardly any need to obsessively skulk around somebody when they were going to meet with you later, the shift in approach left the poor girl terribly flustered.

Of course, her unease was helped considerably by the literal wall of photographs that dominated the room, each one featuring her pigtailed target and skirted by notes and comments that mostly detailed how dreamy and strong Ranma was.

Mizore hoped he didn't think that was weird or anything.

Just having Ranma's likeness nearby - on the occasions where she wasn't keeping close to the ACTUAL Ranma - made her feel safer, like the walls could collapse and the ground open up around her and in an instant she'd wake up in his arms completely protected from harm. And given that those things DID happen around Youkai Academy sometimes, to say nothing of fireballs suddenly raining down on you in the middle of nowhere, it was a more practical reason than some may have guessed.

After a few more seconds of zoning out, another knock came from the door.

"Maybe she's not here? I guess I could always stop by later," Ranma said from out in the hall.

Mizore jolted into action, quickly grabbing a small lollipop from where it sat in a small dish atop her dresser. Closing her lips around the candy and feeling a soothing coldness seep through her pounding heart, she crossed the distance to her front door and turned the knob.

"Oh, there you are!" Ranma said, smiling as Mizore opened the door a crack. "I was beginning to think you were lying in wait for me back at my room or something."

Mizore flushed as she stared wanly at the pigtailed boy, basking in his radiant grin. He even had a spider resting on his shoulder, which she personally found absolutely adorable. Ranma was, without question, a dream given flesh.

"Lying in wait? Is she some sort of creep?" came a young, high-pitched voice that caused Mizore's racing heart to seize up briefly.

She opened the door a little wider, and her elated mood dipped considerably as she saw the young witch that had taken to following her crush around like an abandoned puppy.

"She's... uh... a close friend, you could say," said a male voice that caused Mizore's eyebrow to twitch. "I mean 'close' more in the sense of... you know... literal distance."

Opening the door a bit more revealed Ranma's underwhelming friend and roommate, Tsukune, and her last hopes of a romantic rendezvous with the pigtailed boy faded.

"You should say it plainly," said yet ANOTHER voice, this one pleasant yet sharp, which caused Mizore's hackles to rise, "the girl is an obsessed stalker. It's the truth."

Mizore finally pulled the door open entirely, finally revealing Kana standing behind the others. And while her position may have been humble and demure, there was nothing lady-like about the flash of contempt that crossed her expression when their eyes met.

Needless to say, any joy she had felt from seeing Ranma had now fled entirely, replaced by a cold irritation. "Why are... they... here?" she mumbled.

Ranma shrugged as he rubbed his arms roughly, noticing that it seemed even colder than it usually did when Mizore was close by. "We're on our way to see Miss Wildman, so I thought I could stop by and get those photos I wanted," he explained. "Why? Are they not ready yet?"

Mizore glanced over at Kana, who promptly straightened and glared back at her through her one eye not hidden by her hair.

"They're... not ready yet," Mizore said evenly, starting to close the door. "Come back later."

Ranma looked disappointed, but before he could say anything Kana promptly pushed Tsukune aside and then slammed a hand against Mizore's door, knocking it open. "Enough of your games. Let's get the stupid pictures and leave."

Tsukune regained his footing and then sighed as he sensed a fight brewing.

"So, what, does she only talk when she's pissed off?" Yukari asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Something like that, I guess," Tsukune grumbled.

"Whoa, hey! Kana, what's the big idea?" Ranma asked as he followed the siren into the room quickly.

Mizore bristled silently as Kana glanced around the room, and her fingers slowly froze over within the oversized sleeves of her outfit, each one extending into a razor-sharp ice crystal that continued growing to dagger length.

Kana's only visible eyebrow twitched mightily as she stared at the wall of Mizore's room completely dominated by pictures of Ranma. "What the hell is this? How much of a creep are you?" the siren boomed, her voice reaching an almost painful pitch as she whirled on the other girl.

'If only Ranma wasn't here...' Mizore thought morosely, sliding her blade-like fingers against each other within her sleeves. Besides the fact that she didn't want him to think she was some sort of possessive, violent woman, she also didn't doubt that he'd stop her if she tried to fillet a friend of his out of indignation and embarrassment.

"Whoa... this is... uh..." Ranma stopped short behind Kana, caught off-guard by the massive wall that seemed to be devoted to him.

Mizore flushed as he started looking over the photos carefully, to be joined a moment later by a fairly stunned Tsukune and Yukari.

"Well, I can kind of appreciate the sentiment here," Yukari muttered, "but still, YIPES."

"Er... Ranma?" Tsukune looked at the older boy in concern, wondering about his intense stare as he looked over the pictures.

"They're not here," Ranma said suddenly, sounding disappointed as he straightened.

"Hah? What's not here?" Yukari asked.

"The pictures I wanted," Ranma explained, frowning. "Actually, there aren't ANY pictures of me fighting. Or even training in the fight club." He shook his head. "It's not a very good album."

_Thud!_ Tsukune winced as Kana fell over into a faceplant, and promptly moved to help her back up.

"Album? S-Senpai, this isn't really..." Yukari trailed off weakly, unsure of how to explain the social implications of stalking and wary of having to do it right in front of the stalker.

Mizore, for her part, quickly withdrew a folder and held it out to him. "Here. These are the new pictures I was going to add today. I was... hoping we could add them... together."

As a cold shudder ran through everyone else in the room, Ranma happily took the folder and started flipping through the photos inside.

"Okay, here we go!" His eyes narrowed as he looked at two images of Moka chambering a kick, and then another that was mostly distorted by the failure of the camera to record Ranma and Moka's images quickly enough. "Hmm... these could be helpful... hard to say." He flipped through a few more, then gathered up a handful and placed them Mizore's dresser. "I don't need these ones. Use 'em for the wall."

Kana's eyebrow twitched as she clenched her hands into fists. "You're... OKAY with this?" she said, barely containing her voice to a weak growl.

"Well, like I said, it's not really a good representation if there's no pictures of me doing martial arts," Ranma noted as he held up a photograph to the light, "but hey, it's not really any of my business."

"It IS your business!" Kana shouted, shooting a hot glare at Mizore as she waited silently next to her bed. "This is a complete violation of your privacy! You shouldn't have to deal with-"

The siren was cut shorted as Ranma suddenly patted her on the head, causing a flush to fill her cheeks as she suddenly felt her usual shyness reasserting itself.

"It's alright, Kana. Relax," Ranma said, smiling reassuringly as he tussled her hair. "It makes me happy that you're worrying about me, though." Kana's blush darkened, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she took in the feeling of his fingers rubbing at her scalp.

Then the pigtailed boy chuckled as he turned back toward the wall of photos. "Though honestly, it kind of makes me happy to see wallpaper devoted to how cool I am, too!" he wasn't looking at her at the moment, so he missed the vein popping up on her head as well as the extremely annoyed expression on her face.

Yukari sweatdropped and then tugged on Tsukune's arm. "You know, I honestly can't tell if Senpai is really good with girls, or really bad with them."

"Well, it would seem he's not lacking in experience," Tsukune allowed, holding up the newspaper he still held in his hand and looking over the front page article.

He was reasonably surprised and fairly alarmed when Mizore stepped forward and took the newspaper smoothly out of his hands before opening it up to read.

"It's harmless. Let it go," Ranma said to Kana as he pocketed the pictures he wanted from Mizore's collection.

"She is NOT harmless! Stalkers are dangerous!" Kana protested. She glanced over at the stalker in question to check her reaction, but noticed with some irritation that Mizore was calmly reading the school newspaper instead of dealing with them.

Ranma snorted. "I don't think she could hurt me even if she wanted to," he said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Just because she can't hurt you doesn't mean she isn't... **dangerous**," Kana said sharply.

"Whatever that means," Ranma mumbled. "Look, would you calm down? I'm the one asking her for a favor here, and you're totally getting on her case!"

"Why shouldn't I get on her case for sneaking around and taking pictures of you in secret! That's horrible!" Kana protested yet again.

"Not to take sides or anything," Tsukune interjected, "but it's worth pointing out that we caught you hypnotizing us out of our beds at night."

Kana's expression froze in place as her face colored. Yukari raised an eyebrow as she stared at the siren knowingly.

"Okay, okay, look: wrongs were done. Mistakes were made," Ranma said, nodding sagely, "but the important thing is that we forget our differences and all get along, right?" He then noticed that Mizore was cutting out a section of the school newspaper using her finger, which had somehow become a razor-sharp blade of ice.

Tsukune seemed surprised to hear such a sentiment coming from his roommate, and he stumbled a bit before rushing to support him. "Y-Yes! Absolutely! If we don't let mistakes turn into grudges, there's no reason we can't all be friends!"

"Except for Kouma," Ranma said in a deadly monotone as he watched Mizore pin the article up onto the photo wall.

Tsukune blinked. "Huh? Kouma?"

"Yes. Kouma is going to have to pay for his mistakes," Ranma deadpanned.

"But th-that's..." Tsukune trailed off as he noticed Mizore staring at the article, and he sweatdropped at how intensely the cool-tempered girl seemed to be reading it.

Finally, Mizore turned around and stared impassionately at Ranma. "You have... four fiancees?"

As Ranma twitched, she cocked her head to one side. "So... is there a... form to fill out, or..."

"I have to go punish a bad dog now," Ranma said evenly, turning on his heel and walking out the door. "Thanks a lot, Mizore. See you later."

Kana and Yukari quickly followed him, the former scowling briefly at Mizore before matching Ranma's pace and departing.

Tsukune, for his part, offered Mizore a bow as he struggled for something useful to say. "Uh, so, I guess I'll... see you around? Depending on your progress as a stalker, I suppose?"

Mizore frowned as she leaned down to whisper into the boy's ear. "Next time... don't come with him... okay?"

Tsukune shuddered as a gust of cold wafted from her lips and brushed by his ear, chilling his skin instantly. "O-Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Th-Thank you for understanding."

"Hmn..." Mizore glanced over at her wall o' Ranma and cocked her head to one side. "Say..."

"Uh, yes?" Tsukune asked, halting on his way out the door.

"You can see Ranma in the shower whenever you want, right?" Mizore asked, a slight flush crawling over her cheeks.

"I'm... not sure how to answer that, actually," Tsukune mumbled.

Mizore idly scratched at one picture at the top corner of the wall, which had Ranma in a towel, and a note that said "Find some way to remove".

"I was just thinking..." the purple-haired girl said slowly. "If I lent you my camera..."

"I'll be going now," Tsukune deadpanned, walking straight out of the room. "Have a good day, Miss Shirayuki." 'Crazy pervert. I'd hate to think what would happen if she were after me...'

* * *

Within the head offices of the Enforcers, Kishia and Haruo stood at stiff attention as their master and captain of all the Protection Committee calmly perused the large photograph taken by Nagare.

The head of the Committee was an elegant-looking man, with an immaculately pressed jacket and flawless complexion. Long platinum hair swept straight back over his scalp revealed a large forehead with a pair of tattoo circles in the middle.

Kuyo was a cool, calculating sort. Or at least, that was the impression he gave to those that met him for the first time.

To those more familiar with the chief Enforcer, and with the gall to criticize him even in their minds, his calmness was simple arrogance framed by a nearly delusional sense of self-righteousness and authority, and in truth nobody had ever seen anything approaching calculation coming from the man.

That was more the domain of Keito, who was even now carefully reading over Kuyo's shoulder while occasionally casting questioning looks at her two juniors that waited for their captain's judgment. On the occasions that the Enforcers wielded their authority in a manner more befitting a secret criminal organization (as opposed to wielding it in a manner befitting a non-secret criminal organization, which was far more common), she was inevitably at the head of the operation... whether anyone knew it or not.

"Inconceivable," Kuyo said suddenly, slapping the photograph onto the table. "Are we certain this information is reliable?"

Haruo hesitated. "As certain as we can be, Lord Kuyo. Our source has no reason to lie to us."

Of course, that wasn't entirely true, as Nagare had been under considerable pressure to dig up dirt on one of the least disruptive students in the school, but there was no reason to start poking holes in his own story. "As you can see, Aono Tsukune, a human boy, has infiltrated the school right under our noses."

Kishia nodded firmly. "Not only that, but I have reason to believe he may be trying to undermine the authority and presence of the Enforcers on campus, using the fight club as a proxy."

Kuyo clenched his hand into a fist, and a fierce red glow lit around it, as if his glove were burning. "I see. Then it is good you brought this to my attention." His eyes narrowed. "The fight club in particular is an annoyance I had thought extinguished. I am... displeased to learn that Wildman didn't learn her lesson last time."

Then he stared down at the photo. "But still... A human? Here? At this elite school for monsters?"

There was a pregnant pause as each Enforcer digested the implications for themselves.

"Elite?" Kishia said slowly, looking thoroughly confused.

"It's been a long time since Lord Kuyo's attended any classes," Haruo whispered to her.

"This will be dealt with," Kuyo said imperiously, sliding the photograph to the side. "Keito, hand this order down to Jin. Tell him that I am permitting any means necessary to have Aono seized and brought here."

"Of course, Lord Kuyo," Keito said, bowing deeply and walking out of the room.

After she left Haruo bowed as well, making as if to leave.

"Well, if there will be nothing else..."

"As a matter of fact, there will be," Kuyo said, freezing Haruo in his tracks and making Kishia stiffen even more than usual. "It is my understanding that each of you have encountered a certain monster here on campus, belonging to the fight club. One by the name of Saotome Ranma."

Haruo scowled angrily. Kishia simply nodded, saying nothing.

"Ah, not fond memories, I see. Tell me of him," the Committee leader commanded.

Haruo needed no further prompting. "He's an arrogant brute and chronic delinquent who takes pride in flouting school rules and pummeling those of us trying to restore order," the gargoyle growled.

"What's more," Kishia cut in, "he's Aono's lackey. Aono treats him as a bodyguard and uses his influence in the fight club to his own devious ends."

Kuyo nodded slowly. "I see. However... is it possible that Saotome is unaware of Aono's species?"

Kishia and Haruo gasped, glancing at each other.

"Of course! Maybe the human has merely been using him all this time!" Kishia hissed. "It makes so much sense!"

"Hmph. To think that even one as mighty as Saotome can be toyed with like that. Humans are truly terrible and frightening creatures," Haruo mumbled, although he seemed curiously pleased.

"I can think of no reason why our students would knowingly allow the existence of a human. Perhaps he would cease being such a bother if he were to realize that the Protection Committee is looking out for his interests by disposing of his friend."

Kishia sweatdropped. "Erm... When you put it that way, actually..."

"I will see to it personally, Lord Kuyo," Haruo said, bowing.

"Of course. If Saotome is unwilling to side with us for some reason, inform me at once," Kuyo commanded, steepling his fingers. "I will put an end to his defiance myself. There are far too many among our student body who think their trifling 'powers' place them above the law. It may be time I disabused them of this notion."

Haruo nearly shed a tear as he imagined Ranma on his hands and knees, begging for his life as Kuyo seared the flesh from his bones. "I would relish the event, my lord!"

"Then go to it! These fools and dissidents would think to plunge this, our precious academy, into chaos and disorder, but I will not stand for it! We will end Aono's duplicity and Saotome's disruptions once and for all, and then all will know the TRUE authority of this campus!"

* * *

"We don't have a fight club meeting today, but I think Miss Wildman is usually around here," Ranma explained as he led Tsukune, Yukari, and Kana through the main gym.

Most of the space inside was taken up by a large basketball court, and the volleyball club had set up a pair of nets and were practicing diligently.

Ranma quickly spotted his club's head and advisor near the back of the gym lecturing a member of the fight club as he hammered away relentlessly at a punching bag. "There she is! C'mon!"

"Your pace is slacking! Keep up your speed!" Riza Wildman barked as the rather weedy-looking fighter huffed desperately. "And keep your aim steady! When your blows don't land properly, not only do you do less damage, but you spend extra time and energy drawing back your arm! Keep your elbows properly chambered!"

As the boy's performance only seemed to deteriorate, Riza noticed a small group of students approaching. She didn't recognize most of them, but the half-werewolf brightened when she saw Ranma leading the group. "Oi! Human! Get your ass over here! I need you to demonstrate something!"

Ranma dashed forward immediately, stopping in front of them. "Yeah? What's up?"

Riza patted the large red punching bag on the side as the other club member backed off. "Hit this thing as fast as you can."

_Whomph!_ The bag's supports snapped as it flew away the air, eventually impacting the wall of the gym before it flopped onto the floor.

Tsukune blinked. Ranma was still standing there with his arms at his sides, and he could have sworn that the older human hadn't even moved. To him, it looked like the bag had simply exploded away from the pigtailed boy.

Riza frowned. "I said as FAST as you could, not hard."

"It's the same thing to me," Ranma replied, shrugging. "When you hit the same spot that many times, it registers as one big hit."

"Hmh..." Riza waved off the other student, allowing him to go rest. "Whatever. Are you here for extra practice?"

"Nope. A friend of mine wanted to talk to you. Something about the fight club removing the Enforcers from power."

Riza raised an eyebrow. "No kidding? Huh."

Before Tsukune could step up, Ranma continued. "Hey, is Kouma around here?"

"Eyebrows? Yeah, he's always around here, it seems," Riza murmured, pointing behind her to the gym's rear exit. "I heard he got into a fight and used his monster form, so I'm making him do laps as punishment."

'Oh yeah, that is against the rules, isn't it?' Ranma thought to himself, remembering the battle against the elementals. Not having a "monster" form himself, it was easy to forget that the usual Youkai Academy student had to hold themselves back if they wanted to comply with the rules. Not that many of them bothered.

Ranma silently turned toward the exit and left, Kana trailing behind him quietly.

Tsukune cleared his throat, straightening. "Hello Miss Wildman, I'm Tsukune Aono. We met briefly when the clubs were demonstrating for new members."

"Ah. Okay..." Riza mumbled, not remembering the boy at all. "So what can I do for you?"

Tsukune gave a pensive glance back at Yukari, who offered him an encouraging thumbs-up.

"Miss Wildman, can you tell me why the fight club resists the Enforcers?" Tsukune asked.

Riza raised an eyebrow. "Why? Are you one of them?"

"No, not at all," Tsukune said quickly. "In fact, I guess you could say I'm an enemy of the Enforcers, technically."

Yukari snorted. "From my observations, anyone who isn't in the Protection Committee is an enemy by default."

"Well, yes, that's actually why I'm here," Tsukune continued, playing off of Yukari's comment. "The Enforcers need to be stopped, once and for all."

"No kidding?" Riza said lazily, leaning against the remains of the punching bag setup that Ranma had destroyed. After a moment, she glanced over at the club member she had been training. "Do fifty pushups and then hit the showers, slacker. You've got a lot of endurance to build up before we start combat training you."

The student in question grumbled under his breath as he staggered away, looking ready to collapse at any moment.

"Well, that's an interesting idea, I guess," Riza said, once again addressing Tsukune. "So why are you telling me about it?"

"I know that the fight club has challenged the Protection Committee's authority in the past, so-"

"You're wrong," Riza deadpanned.

Tsukune blinked. "What? Wrong about what?"

"We've never challenged the Enforcers' authority," Riza explained, crossing her arms under her breasts. "We challenge individual Enforcers, sure. But we don't really have any particular problem with the Committee overall."

"You... You don't?" Tsukune asked, fairly stunned. "Uh... Then, why do you fight them?"

Riza shrugged. "Well, who else is there to fight besides them and the monstrels? I mean, we get into plenty of scrapes with individual monsters - Saotome is kind of the rising star on that front - but they can't offer us any kind of real challenge. The Enforcers are actually organized enough to stand up to us as a group, so they're our targets."

Tsukune said nothing as he rushed to re-do his mental calculations and arguments.

"Not that they've been up to snuff this year," Riza continued, looking annoyed. "Last year they fought like bears defending their territory. This year they've been more like jackals; they've just been preying on the very weakest while fleeing from any harsher conflict."

The redhead shrugged. "I guess that's mostly our fault, though. They probably still remember getting walloped last year, and it doesn't help that any of 'em who show any spine end up with broken spines."

"Well then, if you want to provoke them, shouldn't you move deeper into their territory?" Tsukune said suddenly.

"Eh? Whaddya mean?"

"The student council!" Tsukune almost shouted. "It's the key to their power here on campus! Without the student council under their thumbs, they could lose the authority they have over Youkai Academy! THAT would get them into a fighting mood!"

Riza raised an eyebrow as she thought over the proposition. "Huh... Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad idea, actually. But what would we do with the council when we have it?"

A few droplets of sweat started to collect on Tsukune's brow. "Well, ideally, you'd protect them from harm while they restore actual law and order to campus and stamp out corruption..."

"Wow," Riza said humorlessly, "that's about as 'ideal' as it gets."

She crossed her arms under her breasts as she continued. "All right, cut to the chase, shrimp. You obviously want the fight club assaulting the Enforcers, apparently even more than we already do. What's your angle? What do you get out of this?"

Tsukune wet his lips nervously as he considered all his possible responses and Riza's likely responses to them. He hadn't expected the fight club's activities to be so pointless in their violence, although in retrospect it made sense. Riza didn't seem opposed to his idea, but at the same time Tsukune had very little to offer her.

'Well, when all else fails, I suppose it's time to tell the complete and unvarnished truth,' he thought wryly as he sighed.

"I want the Enforcers out of power because I've seen what they do around campus, and it's horrible!" Tsukune admitted, lowering his head. "They're in charge of keeping the peace, but I've never seen one stopping a fight or helping someone in trouble. They do nothing for the security of Youkai Academy, and instead abuse their authority by extorting money and settling personal grudges. They been badgering and attacking Ranma over a prank that someone pulled on him, and recently even attacked me and my friends to get back at him, and both Ranma and Moka got hurt as a result. They're worse than useless, and I think the school would be a much better place if they were gone."

His hands gripped into fists as he glared at the floor. "I can't do anything myself, so I'm trying to find people who can, and will. I'm tired of hearing about students afraid to criticize them and clubs having to pay them or shut down."

He looked up again, meeting the noticeably unsympathetic gaze of Riza. "There's a lot wrong with this school, it's true, and I know this might not fix anything. But I see a chance to fight back against the real criminals and hopefully make this a better place, and I want to take it."

"Huhn..." The redhead cocked her head to one side as she stood up. "So that's how it is, huh?"

Then she smiled and hooked her arm around Tsukune's shoulders before rustling Tsukune's hair, surprising the human boy and causing him to stiffen. "You're a nice guy, aren't you?"

"Uh? W-Well, I like to think so..." he stuttered, unsure of what to make of the question.

"Heh. I don't hate guys like you," Riza said, smirking as she let go of his head and stood up straight again. "And it would be nice to call the Protection Committee out once and for all for a showdown, so why not? I'll start telling the crew to start hanging around the student council offices and pick some fights."

"Oh, that's... good! Thank you!" Tsukune said, hesitating only a little. He couldn't help but wonder if he was making a mistake, relying on a force of reckless thugs to take on a force of slightly less reckless, more organized thugs. Surely there would be little to stop the fight club from doing as they pleased if they decided to seize control of the student council themselves.

Yukari once again gave an encouraging gesture in the form of two thumbs-up.

Tsukune sweatdropped. 'Then again, it's not like the Enforcers stop them as things are, so I guess the only limits on their actions is their own initiative.'

Ranma certainly exemplified that thought. The martial artist was nigh-unstoppable, but somehow... lazy. He usually got into fights in reaction to a threat or challenge, and never seemed to put his superhuman abilities to any productive use besides defending his friends.

Which he was very thankful for, and was a very good use of his strength, but Tsukune found it strange that Ranma was content to lie back and build his reputation by simply clobbering anyone who challenged him rather than, say, fighting the strongest monster in the school or roving the halls to stop monstrous bullies.

'Well, I suppose it's better that he doesn't go around picking fights to prove himself,' Tsukune reconsidered. 'Speaking of which, he's been gone a little while. I wonder if Kouma's okay?'

* * *

The hellhound in question was currently completing his seventeenth lap around the gym sports field, the burnt-out remains of a cigarette hanging from his lips as he gasped for breath.

Not that a few laps of running were anything that could strain him, but he had forced himself to keep up an almost constant dash the whole time, pushing his body to the limit.

'Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could you disappoint Miss Riza like that, you idiot!' he thought to himself, puffs of dark gray smoke bursting from his lips. His body temperature was already soaring from the constant exertion, and he could feel his lungs literally burning as they incinerated every scrap of oxygen, toxin, and tar to fuel his legs.

'They warned you about staying human! But no, you had to learn the hard way! Idiot!' the hellhound groused mentally as he rounded the edge of the field, his pace slackening.

After a few seconds, his teeth clamped onto the end of the cigarette, and he started speeding up again. 'This is for your benefit, Kouma! If Saotome can fight as well as he does in human form, then I can too! All I need to do is train myself under the limitations of a human body!'

His eyes flaring a bright red, he raised his head from the track below to check how far he had to go until he reached the lap marker.

Kouma was quite confused and understandably upset to find an outstretched arm blocking his path.

"BWAH!" the hellhound was pitched onto his back after being clotheslined, slamming onto the dusty dirt track with a meaty _Thud!_

He honestly wasn't that surprised to see Ranma leaning over him a moment later; it seemed that any time something annoying happened to him, the pigtailed boy was always involved, if not directly responsible.

"Hey Eyebrows. Take a break. You look like you're about to die," Ranma deadpanned, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Kouma struggled to sit up, lacking the energy to even lash out at his partner in blind fury as usual. "Why did you do that? You made me swallow my cigarette."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sorry... wait, is that even a bad thing?"

"I was saving it for when I finished twenty laps," the hellhound groused, "you know, as a reward."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, you were working hard enough. Take a break."

Kouma noticed that some girl he didn't recognize was following behind Ranma silently, holding her book bag against her stomach. "What, you've got another chick? Yeesh, maybe Gin was right," the hellhound mumbled, wiping a hand through his shaggy black hair.

Ranma's eyebrow twitched, but he managed to keep his fists on his hips. "Gin... I don't know a Gin, do I?"

"Morioka Ginnei," Kouma said as he stood up. "You wouldn't know him, I think. Well, unless he hit on your girl form." Then the hellhound frowned. "So why are you here, anyway? If I don't finish my laps, Miss Wildman is going to get upset with me again!"

"I'm here about a funny story, actually," Ranma mumbled, scratching his chin. "Specifically, a funny story about ME, that was routed around the ENTIRE CAMPUS recently."

Kouma blinked. "Really? What's the story? Do I know it?"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched again, and he resisted the urge to simply start pummeling his partner. "Yeah, actually, I think you do. It's a little drama about how I ended up engaged to three different girls. Only without any of the parts about how it wasn't my fault," the martial artist growled.

Kouma recoiled, any lingering irritation fading before the obvious annoyance of his (considerably stronger) combat partner. "Whoa! Hold on! If that story got out, it was NOT my fault! I only told ONE guy! And that was just yesterday! It couldn't have been spread around campus in just one day!"

It was just then that a harsh wind happened to blow by, forcing Kana to hold down her skirt and conveniently blowing a newspaper by.

Ranma's hand lashed out like a snake, snagging the paper and then shoving it in front of Kouma's face.

"Oh! Thanks, man!" the hellhound said, taking the paper and wiping his head with it.

_Crack!_ Kouma was bowled over by a snap kick to the side of his head, which sent him sprawling.

"Read it you moron! Don't wipe yourself with it!" the pigtailed boy shouted.

Kouma, although upset at being kicked, was so confused by everything that was happening that he quickly grabbed up the paper and started scanning the headlines to try and figure out what was wrong.

There was a long, grim silence as Ranma waited patiently, watching beads of sweat drip down Kouma's forehead to replace that which he had wiped away.

"So. Who was it that you told, again?" Ranma asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"N-Now that you m-mention it... Gin did s-say something about a n-newspaper club," Kouma stuttered as he slowly put the paper down. "But, I mean, I've never seen a school newspaper here before... why did the club release one NOW?"

"..." Kana leaned in toward Ranma as she mumbled something to him.

"Yeah, if this 'Gin' jerk is the only one in the club, I guess it would be hard to write up a paper regularly, wouldn't it?" Ranma agreed.

Kouma started glancing around, searching for anything or anyone that could possibly help him escape. "Hey, look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think he'd go and put it in the freaking PAPERS!"

"Heh, don't worry about it," Ranma said suddenly, rubbing the back of his head, "what's done is done, right?"

Kouma blinked. "Wh-What? You're not gonna beat me up?"

"Beat you up?" Ranma asked, snorting. "What am I, some sort of creep? Of course I'm not going to beat you for making a mistake!"

Then he frowned and stared up at the sky. "I do have a question, though."

"A question?" Kouma asked, feeling immensely relieved that Ranma wasn't going to take vengeance. "What is it?"

"I heard that there are certain kinds of sounds that only dogs can hear, and I wanted to see if that was true," Ranma said, smirking.

Kouma recoiled, and then he grabbed Ranma by the collar before baring large, pointed fangs at his partner. "Oh, no you don't! I hate dog whistles! You give that here or I'll punch it right down your throat the moment you try and blow it!"

Ranma's smirk turned into a grin. "I don't have any whistle. Kana?"

To Ranma, the scene was almost unreal. Kana simply blew air noiselessly from between her lips, and Kouma collapsed nervelessly onto the ground, his body spasming as his hair stuck straight out.

"Ah! Ah! AAAAAH!" Kouma shouted as he writhed about. "What the HELL! Stop! Stop! This is even worse than the whistle!"

"Really? That's VERY interesting," Ranma said, smiling down at the hellhound. "I mean, I don't hear a thing!"

"AARGH! All right! I'm sorry! REALLY SORRY! Please, stop it! I'm BEGGING YOU!"

* * *

A pair of wolf ears popped up out of Riza's hair as she heard the side door to the gym open up, and she turned her head. "Ah, Eyebrows, there you are. You finished already?"

"Oh, he's finished, all right," Ranma said evenly. Kana trailed behind him as before, but this time she had a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

Kouma looked haggard and dizzy, but had no obvious physical damage at all. Besides that, he occasionally shot glances of pure terror at Kana, who each time met his gaze with a bright, happy smile.

Curiously, that seemed to make Kouma even more nervous.

"Okay, so here's the scoop!" Riza said suddenly, causing Ranma and Kouma to give her their complete attention. "The Enforcers are running like squirrels, so we're going to have to capture us a tree! We're going to start staking out the territory around the student council offices! If the Enforcers give us any lip about it, you split that lip right open!"

Kouma raised his hand. "What if the student council gets in our way?"

Ranma frowned and turned toward Kana. "Hey, Kana-"

"ALL RIGHT, I'M SORRY! I TAKE IT BACK!" Kouma suddenly screamed, slapping his hands over his ears as he whimpered and fell into the fetal position.

Ranma sweatdropped. "Would you chill out? I was just gonna ask her if she knew any student council people. Yukari knows a lot ABOUT other students, but she doesn't make many friends."

The young witch shrugged. "I have Moka and Senpai. With the two greatest students in Youkai Academy at my side, why would I bother making friends with the rest of the idiots that infest this place?"

That explanation got Yukari a few glares from Kana and Kouma, not to mention a few of the girls that were using the gym and had overheard, but true to form the young witch pretended like they didn't even exist.

"..." Ranma frowned as Kana finally gave her response to his question.

"Well, if he's in your class that's better than nothing. Could you ask him to meet me, then?" the pigtailed boy asked, glancing down at the purple-haired girl.

His expression fell as she watched the siren shrink in on herself and bite her lip. "Oh. I, uh... guess you couldn't, really."

Finally, Ranma shrugged. "Okay, so we go with plan B." Then he turned toward Tsukune. "Tsukune, what's plan B?"

The younger human sighed. "I'll make sure to come up with something, Ranma. For now, let's go eat dinner." Tsukune glanced over at Kouma. "Do you want to come too?"

The hellhound gulped. "Is SHE coming with you?" he asked, pointing timidly toward Kana.

"You mean the frail, docile girl too chronically shy to ask a classmate a simple question?" Yukari deadpanned. "Yes. Are you scared of her or something?"

"I'm not scared!" Kouma said suddenly, puffing himself up as he snuck a wary glance at Riza. "Don't be ridiculous! Like I'd be afraid of someone like that! I just don't like her attitude, is all!"

Kana looked annoyed for a second, and Kouma nearly felt his heart stop as she started to inhale.

Ranma quickly placed a hand on the siren's shoulder, stopping her short. "Don't. Who knows how many canines we have in here," he mumbled.

As Kana pouted, Ranma grabbed Kouma's wrist and yanked the nearly paralyzed fighter forward. "As for you, stop being a coward and come eat with us."

"That's the spirit! Fight together, eat together, and win together!" Riza said happily, thrusting a fist into the air. "And don't forget: by this time tomorrow, I expect to hear that you've beaten a stronger Enforcer than some flimsy elemental! WITHOUT using your monster forms!"

Ranma snorted. "Yeah, like that'll be a problem. Let's go."

Kouma looked fairly meek as he let Ranma pull him out of the gym, but suddenly frowned as his nose wrinkled, and then pulled himself free from his partner's grasp. Ranma didn't react, eager as he was to get to the cafeteria.

Yukari gave him a strange look as the hellhound started sniffing the air in earnest, his nose drawing him closer and closer to Tsukune.

The boy in question yelped as he suddenly found his arm seized, and he stared in confusion as Kouma started sniffing up his arm, then shoulder, before smelling his hair deeply.

"Uh... something wrong?"

The hellhound frowned deeply as he took another few whiffs of Tsukune's head. "Go wash your hair."

"What? Now?" Tsukune asked, sweatdropping.

"YES," Kouma growled.

Tsukune quickly dashed off to do as he was told, not willing to resist such a harmless demand. "Okay! Fine! I'll go wash! Meet you guys later!"

Kana rolled her eyes at the sight. "..."

Yukari snickered in response. "Yup. Then again, when would a hellhound NOT be in heat, right?"

"Oh, shut up," Kouma snarled, his face glowing red as he ran to catch up to Ranma once more.

* * *

End Chapter 9

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

Tsukune whistled happily to himself as he carried a bag of trash behind him, having just cleaned up the sections of the room now abandoned by Ranma's pet spiders.

He had no idea how the older boy had done it, honestly, and had to consider that either Ranma or the arachnids themselves were much smarter than he gave them credit for.

He still wasn't sure what the big deal was with cats, however.

Reaching the dumpster next to the dorms, he hoisted the bag over his shoulder and then tossed it up over the lip of the container.

_Thwump!_ "Ow!"

Tsukune froze as he heard a cry of pain come from within, and he immediately rushed up to the steel bin.

"Hello? Is someone in there? I'm SO sorry, I had no idea there was anybody in the trash!" He said as he hoisted himself up onto the edge and pulled his recently discarded trash bag back out.

Laying underneath it, much to Tsukune's horror, was what appeared to be a young boy with pink hair and curiously elegant clothing to be found amongst garbage. The boy groaned miserably, as if he could have spoken properly to Tsukune but didn't even want to bother.

While he could imagine that there were some monsters who would eat, or even live in, trash, this one sure didn't look the type, nor did it look as if he was in the dumpster of his own free will. In fact, the boy had a knife blade impaling his leg, a fact that added another layer of alarm and urgency to Tsukune's mental panic.

"Hold on, I'll get you out of here and then go get help!" Tsukune said, stepping into the garbage and carefully pulling the clearly abused boy up and over his shoulder.

Saffron grit his teeth against the pain, forcing himself to keep quiet lest he get dropped back into the trash.

Tsukune clumsily landed at the foot of the dumpster, and then laid Saffron against it. "Wait here, I'll go get the school nurse!" Tsukune said, turning around.

"There's no need," Saffron finally gasped out, sticking out his injured leg and holding it in place. "Remove the blade at once."

Tsukune hesitated, fairly certain that such an action was quite dangerous to do to a human, but also quite sure that the boy in front of him wasn't human. "Are you sure you'll be okay if-"

"That wasn't a request!" Saffron barked, gritting his teeth. "Hurry! The pain is quite a deal more than you're familiar with, I'm sure!"

Tsukune went into action immediately, closing his hands around the knife's handle and closing his eyes against his squeamish stomach.

With one gut-wrenching tug, he had pulled the knife free and then quickly tossed it back into the trash dumpster.

"Are you going to be all right?" Tsukune asked as he opened his eyes again, watching with wonder and relief as the little boy's leg wound regenerated before his eyes.

"I'll be fine after I wash," Saffron grumbled, testing his leg gingerly.

"Well, what happened to you?" The human boy asked.

Saffron gave Tsukune an odd look as he finally stood up. "Why do you care?"

"Anyone would care if they found somebody in a dumpster!" Tsukune exclaimed.

"The last man who did so simply mumbled something about the students being sure that their victims were dead before throwing out their bodies. And then he stabbed me in the leg. Before taking me to the dumpster along with the garbage," Saffron deadpanned. He was so weary from the day's abuse that he didn't even bother to sound indignant about the treatment.

"That's... That's terrible!" Tsukune said, startling the Phoenix king. Then the boy grimaced. "Not that we can do anything about it. Reporting misconduct to the Enforcers is a waste of time."

"You... want to do something about it?" Saffron asked, mystified. "You... care?"

"Of course I care!" Tsukune insisted. "At the very least, I can help you get back to your room! Which dorm is it?"

Both Tsukune and even Saffron seemed somewhat alarmed as the latter suddenly sniffled and started blinking rapidly.

"Wha... What is... this," the Phoenix king asked as his vision went blurry. "Droplets of... liquid... in eyes..." he mumbled, wiping away the tears as they ran down his cheeks. "I may... be ill. This has... never happened before..."

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Ah... Those are tears, that's all. You're not sick." He tilted his head to one side. "Does your species not cry or something?"

Saffron's suddenly enraged expression was somewhat ruined by the tears now freely streaming down his face. "Fool! I am Saffron, king of the Phoenix, Lord of Flame! I do not CRY!" To which he added a moment later, "Bwaaaaah!" as he broke down into a sobbing wreck.

Tsukune glanced about, glad that there was nobody around to see him tending to the child-like king. After confirming that he was alone, he silently rubbed the smaller boy's head the way he remembered his cousin used to do for him when they were younger.

After nearly a minute of bawling, Saffron's sobs weakened into loud sniffling and hiccups, and Tsukune patted him on the back gently.

"There, there. Are you ready to go home now?"

Saffron wiped his nose clumsily and nodded as he sniffled again.

"All right, then. Let's take you home," Tsukune said, gently taking the Phoenix king's hand.

'Geez, this is awful. Who would treat a poor, harmless child like Saffron so horribly? I'll have to talk to Ranma about maybe taking a harder line against some of the bullies around here.' 


	11. Predator or Prey?

"Hello everyone! I hope you're doing well today!"Shizuka Nekonome chirped as she took up her usual position in preparation for the omake. "Today we have another segment of 'Meet the Teachers,' where we explore the twisted minds of our esteemed and utterly unstable staff!"

The homeroom teacher pointed to Jadeite, who was scowling as he sat on a stool to the side. "Today we couldn't get a hold of anyone useful or interesting, so we'll be interviewing this guy instead: Professor Jadeite!"

The Dark General glared up at the nekomata as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Your introductions leave much to be desired, feline," Jadeite growled.

Shizuka ignored the complaint as she leaned over and shoved her microphone in front of him. "So Professor, my first question is: are you really even a professor?"

Jadeite snorted. "Of course I am, fool. I got my graduate degree at Terra University, coming fourth in my class." Then his face darkened as he added, "Right after all the other generals..."

Shizuka didn't seem convinced. "I've never heard of a 'Terra University'. Is that even properly accredited?"

"Of course it is! Or, was, at least," Jadeite admitted. "Educational standards may have... shifted somewhat in the ten thousand years or so since I completed my courses. And although I hate to say it, by intergalactic standards it was generally considered a safety school... but still! The degree is as valid as any!"

Shizuka cocked her head to the side. "So what did you major in, anyway?"

"Japanese literature," Jadeite said proudly, clasping his hands together in front of him.

Shizuka's ear-like hair tufts twitched. "Didn't you say this was ten thousand years ago? Did the Japanese language even exist back then?"

"Of course it did," Jadeite scoffed, "why do you think everyone in the Negaverse speaks it despite us having been sealed away for millennia? Only modern English has been around longer, as it's spoken by most alien races across the universe."

The homeroom teacher looked skeptical, but decided to move on. "So how is it that you ended up at Youkai Academy?"

"Well, after I was entombed - quote, FOREVER, unquote - in crystal because a bunch of teenage idiots got lucky in their battle against me, I happened to be found by a few inter-planar prospectors. After they destroyed my crystal prison, they said they wanted to be compensated for their efforts, since the crystal apparently would have been much more valuable with me still locked inside."

"Really? How?" Shizuka asked, intrigued.

"Apparently I make a rather enchanting black light, and the elder beings have always lagged a few decades behind as far as furnishing trends go," Jadeite mumbled bitterly. "But never mind. Upon learning of the sum I was expected to pay and exactly how resistant my rescuers were to having their souls burnt out of their skulls, I managed to negotiate a payment plan. Naturally, that meant I had to find a job that would pay me in whatever absurd currency those prospectors wanted. After getting in touch with some old contacts and then exterminating them for their assets, I found some papers indicating that one had just been hired to teach at Youkai Academy. From there all it took was some white-out to secure my place among our esteemed faculty."

Shizuka nodded, seemingly unperturbed by the story of extortion, murder and fraud. "Okay then, I have one more question: if your degree is in Japanese lit, then shouldn't your class be-"

"Japanese lit, yes," Jadeite confirmed, "that is the official title of the class, as put before the faculty manager. But that would hardly serve my purposes, so I changed the material and course catalog to make a class about devil hunters."

"So are you even qualified to teach about evading devil hunters?"

Jadeite looked insulted at the question. "I'm more than qualified! I'm experienced! There's no one more suitable than I am when it comes to being obliterated by teenage magical girls!"

Shizuka frowned. "Isn't the point of your class to AVOID obliteration?"

Jadeite shrugged. "I never really got the hang of that part."

Shizuka suddenly swung around, smiling brightly again. "Well, I'm sick of talking to this lunatic, so that's all we have for you! Enjoy the chapter!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: This is the chapter where the monsters all complain about humans as if we're the monsters. Like it's our fault we're so awesome that we leave only devastation and Starbucks franchises in our wake.

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 10  
Predator or Prey?

* * *

"Atten-SHUN! Enforcers, fall in!"

The voice was sharp and crisp as the cool morning air, and had a similar effect of making those nearby shudder.

Standing outside one of the main dorms, and pointedly ignoring the students that had started milling around the area to watch them, stood a full dozen Enforcers, every one of them standing ramrod-straight in a ranked formation.

Dark eyes and square shoulders set, the members of the Protection Committee's compliance squad glared contemptuously at their destination as a single one of their number paced back in forth in front of them.

He had dark gray eyes, almost black, and ruddy brown hair with a white shock running through it. A thin beard, concentrated on his chin and stretching down to his chest, leant the figure an aged look, although he otherwise didn't seem much older than any other student. He was large enough to stand above his soldiers, but not enough to draw attention, although the gigantic police baton on his back, more resembling a two-handed club than any modern enforcement tool, would have demanded attention should his uniform and air of authority fail to do so.

Taking a deep breath, Jin Kaishuu began his speech.

"Fellow Enforcers! Members of the compliance squad! We have gathered here today to complete a very important mission at the behest of Lord Kuyo himself!"

"YES, COMMANDER!" The squad barked as one, individual voices helplessly swallowed up by the surge of noise.

"This school has been infiltrated! Attacked! CORRUPTED! Within these precious halls skulks one of the hated humans! Having snuck by our presumably formidable defenses and possibly extensive precautionary measures, he even now plots to destabilize and corrode our beloved campus!"

With a sharp turn on his heel, Jin stared hard at his men. "And what do we think of that?"

"That pisses us off!" The rank of monsters shouted, some of their eyes flaring red with anger.

"Indeed! And tell me, my fine subordinates, what is the penalty for being a human on school grounds?"

"DEATH! Same as everything else!" The Enforcers barked.

Jin turned around sharply and glared up at the dorms. "Aono Tsukune... Your campaign of disorder ends today! Compliance squad, forward!"

Marching in perfect unison, their heavy boots pounding across the ground, the Enforcers started to advance on the dorms. Those few students that had stuck around to watch the proceedings quickly found other things to do, not willing to risk being in the line of fire once the Enforcers got serious.

"Here is the plan! Sicarus and Nijima will hold position behind the dorms, with an aim on preventing any escape from the windows! Gamano and Filipe! You will take up the rear and prevent any outside interference while awaiting my signal in case reinforcements are needed! The rest of you are with me!"

As Jin spoke, his subordinates peeled off one by one to carry out their orders.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jin smirked as his plan went into action, marveling at the fluid efficiency of his team.

Unlike the regular Enforcers, who did their job with little to no attention to efficiency or results, Jin prided himself on the brutal competence of his compliance squad. Perhaps it was because their job strictly involved violent subjugation of those already judged to be guilty by the senior Enforcers, but whatever the reasons Jin's team was known for being reliable and bringing results among a committee mostly known for corruption and uselessness.

Kuyo didn't pay any attention to such a discrepancy, if he was even aware of it, but if he were to ask Jin what the secret of his team was, he'd receive a simple and useful answer: planning.

To Jin, a plan of action was the line that separated barbarism and chaos from peace and discipline. It was the glue of civilization, the shield of law and order.

It was this shield that he held before him as he ascended the stairs to Aono's room, and it was thanks to his extensive planning that he felt no fear even as he drew closer and closer to his prey.

'To think one of the infamous humans should find his way here into Youkai Academy itself! What sorts of terrors does he have in store for our campus? What treachery does he plan to unleash upon our hapless students?'

Despite the danger he was surely in, he couldn't help but feel mildly excited by the inevitable encounter. Unlike many of the other students, he had never lived among or near humans before, and his image of them was molded by rumor and stories.

Jin looked ever more excited as he walked down the hall to the target room. Would the human have plans of his own to stave off an assault? Would he have traps built, and defenses filled with the humans' dreaded weapons?

Jin felt his teeth start to swell to their actual proportions and his skin start to bulge from the tension in the air, and he quickly put a reign on his thoughts. 'Careful! You can't lose control so easily! Stick to the plan!' Jin thought as his clothes slackened again. 'If all goes well, I'll be able to cut loose soon enough.'

_Bam! Bam!_ Jin pounded a fist on the door in front of him as the compliance squad lined up behind him, their arms clasped tightly behind their backs.

"Attention resident! This is Kaishuu Jin of the Youkai Academy Protection Committee! We have been served an order for your immediate arrest! Come out and surrender at once or we will detain you with force!"

Jin backed up and started flexing his arm, preparing to hammer down the door.

To his surprise, within seconds the lock clicked and the door opened up.

Jin was even more surprised to see someone other than Tsukune standing in the doorway glaring at him.

"And a good morning to you, too," Ranma said icily as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you clowns want?"

One of the Enforcers bristled with indignation at the insult, but hesitated as Jin put up a hand.

"We're here on official business, Saotome. Very grave business. We have been served a warrant for an immediate arrest and execution!" the senior Enforcer declared, drawing himself up. "As I'm sure you're aware, only the highest of crimes demand such measures!"

"I was not aware," Ranma deadpanned, "I thought you guys just killed off whoever you felt like killing, no matter what stupid rule they violated."

"We do!" Jin confirmed shamelessly. "But only the highest crimes warrant actual paperwork!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head. "Right. Okay, hurry up and say your piece so I can kick your ass and get on with my weekend," the martial artist growled, "and make it snappy; I have a new technique to learn before I get busy taking down the entire Protection Committee."

"Of course," Jin said, apparently unperturbed by Ranma's attitude and stated intent to destroy his organization, "the crime is that of being **human**."

Ranma's expression went blank. "Wh-What? Say that again."

Jin smirked. "That's right. In this school, nay, this dorm! What's more, in this very ROOM I stand before, a human dwells! And in fact, he's been here ever since the beginning of this semester!"

"Then... you believe me?" Ranma said in wonder as he grabbed Jin's hands tightly, his face glowing. "You believe I'm a human? The Enforcers know?"

The hallway was fairly still for several seconds, the awkward silence broken only by uncomfortable shuffling and stifled snorts.

"You're not here for me, are you?" Ranma asked, his expression darkening.

"We are not," Jin admitted. "I was told Aono Tsukune shares this room with you?"

Ranma took a deep, calming breath as multiple veins throbbed on his forehead. "So you think he's a human? What about me?"

Jin composed himself before he shrugged. "Although I'm vaguely aware of you having some... Encounters with the Protection Committee in the past, I have not been instructed to deal with you. Unless you give me immediate cause to apprehend you-"

"I'm a human," Ranma said bluntly. "Like I said a thousand times! It's a crime, right? You should be here to execute me, not Tsukune!"

One of the Enforcers in the back slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

Jin looked apologetic as he shrugged. "Without some kind of evidence..."

"I just confessed!" Ranma shouted, throwing his arms up.

"A confession from an unreliable source cannot be used to have someone arrested," Jin explained.

"Why am I unreliable?" Ranma demanded.

"Well, for one thing, you're making outrageous claims like you being a human," Jin reasoned, "that's ridiculous. You're clearly unsound and any testimony from you shall henceforth be disregarded."

Ranma's patience broke and he seized Jin by the collar, hauling the Enforcer up in the air.

"All right, moron, this is your last chance to make yourself scarce," Ranma growled. "It's way too early in the morning for this. You're not getting Tsukune, so you can either leave out the front door or through the wall."

Jin waited until Ranma had delivered his threat, and then his hands seized Ranma's arms.

Ranma was only slightly surprised as Jin's arms and fingers bulged, slowly prying himself free from the martial artist's grip. As soon as he had enough room, the Enforcer captain bolted backward toward his men, his eyes hard.

Ranma kept his position, cooling his temper as he glanced between the Enforcers. It didn't escape his notice that Jin's men had barely budged when he was manhandling their leader, neither fleeing or helping him. In his experience so far, it was rare to see such discipline from monsters.

Jin adjusted his collar and then stared coolly at Ranma. "So it seems you still intend to stand against us. Very well."

He dusted off the chest of his jacket roughly. "Naturally, I had planned for this eventuality. Don't think I'm easy prey like that fool Haruo."

Ranma's eyes narrowed. Taking out so many monsters, when he had no idea what kind they were, would be tricky enough, but this lot actually seemed organized and prepared for him.

"Compliance squad! Prepare for plan E! Begin anti-Saotome measures!" Jin shouted as he held up an arm.

Ranma tensed. "Anti-Saotome" measures sounded fairly dangerous. He couldn't keep a tremor of excited anticipation from racing through him, however, at the thought of fighting more capable adversaries whom he could cut loose against without restraint or interruption. Would they be independent powerhouses like Moka or Chopper? Clumsy brutes like Saizo? Or something new?

The Enforcers also tensed as they stepped back from the doorway, some of them crouching while others fell to one knee into a runner's starting pose. Each of them knew their role in the plan unfolding before them, and each man, woman, and genderless freak of nature was ready and eager to lay down their lives for the success of their leader's chosen strategy.

Jin chopped his hand down. "FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!"

Ranma almost fell down in surprise as the Enforcers bolted, each one dashing for the stairs right after the other in a curiously efficient full retreat.

Before long Jin had joined the rout, bounding down the stairs a dozen at a time. "Don't forget, screaming is allowed, but not mandatory!" The captain shouted.

At his prompting, several of the Enforcers released howls of terror as they barreled out of the dorm, shoving aside the perplexed and confused students who were in their way.

Ranma shut the door to his dorm as he scratched his head, wondering what he should make of the encounter. It wasn't that strange to see an opponent flee so suddenly and deliberately, as the Saotome school of Anything-Goes made ample use of strategic retreats, but he was still surprised that the Enforcers had given up so easily. After a few seconds, the bathroom door opened and Tsukune came out wearing a towel around his waist.

"Did something happen? I heard someone knocking," the younger boy asked.

"Eh, a bunch of Enforcers came lookin' for you," Ranma grumbled.

Tsukune reached for his clothes drawer, and then froze. "Wait. For me? What would they want with me?"

It had, of course, occurred to Tsukune that the Enforcers might figure out his role in agitating the fight club against them, but given the Protection Committee's reputation for incompetence, he had expected it to take much longer for them to pay him any attention, if at all.

Ranma clicked his tongue. "They wanted to arrest you for being a human."

"Urk." Tsukune's fingers started to tremble slightly as the color drained from his face. "They... They know I'm human?"

"Yeah. But they won't believe that I'm human!" Ranma complained. "How did you do it?"

Tsukune resisted a small urge to berate his roommate for voicing such petty concerns while his life was in danger; annoying his most reliable friend and ally wouldn't help anything at this point.

"I'm a little worried about how they figured that out myself," Tsukune mumbled as he started getting dressed. "I certainly didn't tell anyone else."

As he pulled on his undershirt, Tsukune grimaced. "This doesn't change much, although we'll need to hurry. If they can't get me themselves, then they might try spreading word about me and hoping that the other students do me in for them."

Ranma frowned. "Ah. I can see that." Then he walked over to the far wall and slid the window open. "Oi, Mizore? You hear that?"

Tsukune twitched as a head of mussy purple hair rose over the window sill.

"He's a... human?" The stalker asked, cocking her head to one side.

As Tsukune groaned weakly, Ranma nodded. "It's a secret though, so don't tell anyone, okay?"

Mizore frowned as she pulled herself up onto the window sill, staring expressionlessly at Tsukune.

"Aren't humans... dangerous?"

Ranma snorted. "Well, sure, I am, but Tsukune's harmless. He couldn't hurt anyone if he tried."

Mizore looked like she had a response to that, but was cut off by a shout from above that quite literally knocked her senseless.

"GET LOST, STALKER!" The demand was accompanied by a rippling wave of force that blasted Mizore from her perch and sent her tumbling down the side of the dorms.

A moment later, the ice fairy shoved her hand into the exterior wall, her fingers instantly sinking into the surface as a patch of ice rapidly spread around it to stop her fall.

Looking up, Mizore's eyes narrowed as she saw Kana descending gently downward, her soft white wings spread wide above her.

The siren looked like she was about to say something else, with potentially painful force, when an arm lashed out from the window and seized Kana's ankle.

Kana shouted wordlessly as she lost her aerial balance, and then pitched forward, eventually ending upside-down as she flailed her wings and arms.

"Ah, Kana, it's you," Ranma said, breaking the siren out of her initial panic at being grabbed.

Kana stopped flailing as she looked into the window, seeing Ranma above her and Tsukune standing behind him with a heavy blush on his face.

Kana quickly moved to hold her skirt down... or rather, up.

"Sorry about that. I didn't know who it was at first," Ranma said, frowning slightly as he stared into Kana's eyes. "Uh... Did you hear what we were talking about earlier?"

Kana cocked her head to one side, looking confused.

"About Tsukune being a human?"

Tsukune promptly smacked a hand over his face and groaned.

"He's a WHAT?" Kana shouted, the last word causing a slight tremor to run through the room and rattle the objects on the shelves.

Ranma winced and twisted a finger in his ear. "Yeah, he's a human. Like me."

Kana sighed in relief. "Oh, like you."

"No, no, he's really a human," Ranma said before he caught himself. "No, wait, I'm a human too!"

"Of course you are," Kana said indulgently, obviously lying as she glanced at Tsukune suspiciously. For some reason Tsukune was staring at her with unusual intensity and some surprise, similar to how Ranma was staring at her before.

"But Aono is REALLY human?" Kana asked hesitantly.

"So am I!" Ranma shouted in frustration. "I'm just not that good at it yet!" He added, remembering what Fran had said to him.

"Okay, sure," Kana mumbled, still looking skeptical, and apparently still so perturbed that her voice was coming out normally. "By the way, why are you two staring at me like that?"

Ranma and Tsukune looked surprised and embarrassed for a moment.

"S-Sorry! It's nothing!" Tsukune said quickly. "It's j-just, um..."

Ranma gestured awkwardly to the left side of his head. "It's just, you know, we never get to see half of your face. We kinda thought there was, maybe... something there."

Kana blinked, uncomprehending, as her long, dark purple hair hung down from the top of her head. This left her face completely exposed, and revealed for the first time that her left cheek and eye were smooth, symmetrical, and utterly flawless.

"Wait, something there?" She asked, not noticing as several scythe-like claws of ice slowly rose up from either side of her. "What did you think was-"

The rest of her question was cut short as the claws clamped down onto her, and both Ranma and Tsukune flinched back as the siren's scream slammed into them, causing the former to finally let go of Kana's leg.

Ranma ignored the ensuing sounds of enraged screaming and shattering ice as he turned toward Tsukune. "Okay, I think we're good."

Tsukune groaned. "I doubt it. But if this is where we're at now..." He hesitated. "Are those two gonna be okay?"

Ranma looked out the window just as Mizore had grappled Kana in close, and he flinched back as the siren retaliated with an almost soundless, jaw-distending screech that sent a rolling shock wave up the wall of the building and sent shudders through the superstructure.

_Crash!_ Ranma winced as the window collapsed into a perfect web of shards, and Tsukune jumped to the side as the giant spiders taking up residence in the corner of the room suddenly bolted away from the outside wall in a frenzied panic.

"Let's not worry about them for now," Ranma said nervously. "So what's the plan?"

Tsukune started pacing as he considered the sudden urgency of their situation. "How quickly can you find Kouma?" It was a Saturday, so obviously Ranma and his partner wouldn't be meeting via normal club activities.

Ranma shrugged. "I have no idea. Miss Wildman isn't holding extra practice today, and I don't know where his room is."

"Then I guess we're doing this without him," Tsukune said firmly. "Do you think you could make do if Kurumu or Yukari were to help you?"

Ranma snorted. "Who do you think you're talking to? I can take on this Volos jerk on my own!"

"Of course you can," Tsukune said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "but can you take Volos plus any allies he might have AND keep everyone else safe from attack or Enforcer traps?"

Ranma's cocky expression wilted as he seriously considered such a conflict. "Well... Probably."

"I think I'll bring Kurumu and Yukari along then. Just in case," Tsukune deadpanned.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Ranma admitted. "Maybe Moka, too."

Tsukune looked surprised by the idea. "What? Why? This could be dangerous!"

"Yeah. If things get ugly, just call up Evil Moka," Ranma reasoned.

Tsukune staggered backward as if struck, and then staggered again as another sonic tremor shook the house.

Once he had regained his footing, he offered up his incredulous response. "Summon Evil Moka? Are you crazy? What if she turns on us?"

"Just as a last resort!" Ranma said quickly. "It's better than being pasted by the Enforcers, right?"

Tsukune stopped to think about that idea, first considering the Enforcers that had pinned Yukari to the wall and beaten down Kurumu, and then recalling Moka kicking the head off of Professor Richard.

"I can't answer that," Tsukune murmured. "Although that does give me an idea. Come on."

Ranma looked confused as Tsukune walked toward the door, but quickly followed the younger human as an icy wind blew through the open window, followed by more shouting. "Right behind you!"

* * *

Back at the Protection Committee office, Haruo and Kishia were awaiting Jin's return eagerly as Keito lounged in a hammock of thick webbing in the corner.

"I really don't need your help to accept the prisoner and take him to Lord Kuyo," the dreary-looking Keito mumbled, clearly annoyed by her two overexcited subordinates. "You can leave."

"Leave? And miss this?" Haruo scoffed, flexing his freshly healed arm. "I've never even HEARD of a human getting into Youkai Academy! No way am I going to miss his apprehension and execution!"

"You forgot judgment," Keito said sharply. "Before we can punish the accused, we must, after all, ensure that they are guilty."

Haruo and Kishia stared at their superior in surprise, their mouths moving wordlessly.

Then Keito snorted. "Ha! Did you actually believe me?"

Haruo and Kishia both collapsed into chuckling.

"Heh heh! You almost had me for a moment, there!"

"Judgment! That was priceless!"

Keito let a smug smile cross her lips. "All right, all right, now quiet down. It sounds like Jin has returned."

Haruo and Kishia gave her blank stares, not being nearly as sensitive as she was to the slight vibrations caused by a dozen monsters all rushing up the stairs at once.

A few seconds later, the pair of junior Enforcers too could hear the sounds of heavy boots against the floor, and they stepped respectfully to the side as they awaited Jin's victorious entrance.

The door was almost smashed off its hinges as Jin burst through it, and the senior Enforcer leapt into the middle of the lobby before turning around sharply.

The compliance squad piled in behind him in a rush of bizarrely orderly panic, immediately forming up into ranks before the Enforcer in the back shut the door securely behind them.

That same student then turned around and saluted. "Lord Jin! Retreat completed successfully!"

Jin nodded firmly. "Textbook withdraw, men! You may now commence terrified gibbering and other approved acts of cowardice!"

Half the squad promptly collapsed into the fetal position and started mumbling to themselves as they rocked back and forth, while the others found absurdly inadequate hiding spots behind pieces of furniture or cradled security blankets.

Thus it was a very pleased and satisfied Jin that finally turned away from his subordinates to look into the eyes of a very displeased and irate Keito.

"Ah, Miss Keito," Jin said evenly. "As you can see, I have successfully returned." Behind his fellow senior were a few junior Enforcers that looked completely confused for some reason, but Jin paid them no mind.

"I can see that you're back, yes," Keito said icily, "but I see very little in the way of 'success'. Where in the Demonweb Pits is Aono Tsukune?"

"I haven't the slightest," Jin said, as if the matter were an irrelevant detail. "We fell back before we even laid eyes on the fiend."

"You... ran?" Kishia mumbled, looking somewhat dizzy. "But you're the compliance squad! There's no way you could lose!"

Jin promptly turned his full attention on the younger Enforcer, his voice erupting as a rumbling growl. "Did you not hear me? We didn't lose, we retreated!"

As Keito massaged her forehead, Haruo crossed his arms over his chest. "Let me guess: you ran into Saotome Ranma."

"Of course," Jin said shamelessly. "Naturally, as I did my research on my target ahead of time, I had a plan in place for just such an eventuality. And I'm not ashamed to say that it worked perfectly!"

"You SHOULD be ashamed!" Keito growled. "Retreating at the first sign of resistance hardly qualifies as a plan!"

Jin looked offended by the comment as he stepped back and spread a hand over his chest. "I don't expect a base schemer like yourself to appreciate the art of strategy, but don't disparage it!"

"What kind of leader plans to fail?" Keito demanded. "You didn't even try to put down Saotome!"

"Why would I bother wasting valuable time and blood trying to BEAT the star of the freshman class?" Jin demanded irritably. "Rather, I evaluated my chances of successfully capturing Aono, and once they fell below the acceptable threshold, I withdrew from the situation with minimal conflict and damage!" Jin gave his juniors an especially smug look. "I'll have you know that none of my men suffered so much as a splinter during this operation!"

Haruo blinked at that and then turned to Kishia. "Actually, that doesn't sound too bad. If I'm going to lose, I'd rather not have to end up on a stretcher at the end."

"Though it's a little difficult to take you seriously with your squad writhing around in horror behind you," Kishia pointed out.

Jin shrugged. "It's standard procedure."

"I've heard enough of this!" Keito snapped, a vein bulging on her forehead. "We gave this task to you for a reason, Jin! Because it needed to be done even if we had to assign half the Protection Committee and carve a building apart to do so!"

Keito felt her fangs growing due to her frustration, and she forced herself to calm down. "Do you have any idea what it could mean that a human has found his way here, into Youkai Academy? It could herald the destruction of this entire school and everyone in it! What are you going to do when the rest of the humans have found us?"

Jin snorted dismissively. "I have a plan for that too, of course. Observe," he said haughtily, withdrawing a manila folder and opening it before the other Enforcers.

The trio stared for several seconds before Keito decided to state the obvious. "This is a Cuban passport and a Spanish-Japanese dictionary."

"Naturally, I've already mastered the basics of the language ahead of time," Jin said smugly. "Me llamo Jin! Como estas?"

Keito promptly tossed the folder behind her. "I've had enough of this. Aono Tsukune has to die, and by now Saotome Ranma has indirectly caused me enough grief that I'm willing to sign his death warrant too."

Haruo raised an eyebrow. "Wait... Was that a figure of speech, or do we actually have paperwork for that?"

_Thwip!_ The gargoyle was answered by a patch of webbing that sealed his mouth shut.

"He's been getting a lot of practice in removing those, so I'll make this quick so I don't have to hear his voice again today," Keito said irritably, "I am going to take care of Aono personally. You have until that time to do SOMETHING about Saotome to get him off our backs, and I really don't care what." Her eyes narrowed. "If this not done, I will dispose of him myself. And THEN, I will dispose of each of you worthless cretins that failed me. Is that CLEAR?"

Kishia gulped nervously. She didn't know Keito very well, but she had been in the Protection Committee long enough to hear rumors and make a few observations about Kuyo's right-hand woman. Keito held significant rank despite not doing better work or showing more talent than her peers, and Kuyo only seemed to rely on her because she had been by his side longest, rather than because of any sort of special favor or trust.

No, Keito wasn't respected because she deserved it. She was respected because she was feared, much in the way that Kuyo himself was. Those that annoyed her seemed to suffer the worst assignments (which, among the Enforcers, mostly consisted of legitimate work), and those that made her mad had "accidents".

Such was the train of thought that led Kishia to grab Haruo's arm and quickly drag the gargoyle into the hallway, stepping over and around those members of the compliance squad that were still in the middle of their false catatonia.

"All right Haruo, I think it's time we took care of this problem once and for all," the elemental said seriously as she rounded on her fellow Enforcer, her eyes hard, "Saotome must be stopped or it's more than just our rank on the line."

With a grunt, Haruo finally managed to tear the webbing from his mouth. "And why is that again? Let her fight him, maybe we'll get an apology out of her after we scrape her body off the pavement."

A puff of steam came from Kishia's mouth as she snorted. "Fat chance! Look, whatever Saotome is going to do to us for defying him, there's no way it can be worse than what Keito will do if we don't stop him!" Her eyes narrowed. "Remember, however powerful Saotome is, he hasn't killed any of his opponents yet. Not only does that mean that fighting him is probably less dangerous than disappointing Keito, but it also means that she'll probably still be alive to make good on her threats, even if she loses."

Haruo grimaced, quickly accepting the elemental's logic. "All right, you have a point. We do have Lord Kuyo's idea to work with. But do you really think he'll believe us and turn on Aono if we say he's human?"

"It couldn't hurt to try," Kishia said.

Haruo raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, fine, it will probably hurt like skinny-dipping in the Abyss while basted in virgin's blood," Kishia admitted, "but my earlier point still stands!"

Haruo nodded reluctantly. "Yes. It's still a better plaaaAAAAUGH!"

Kishia lurched backward as lightning suddenly blasted into her companion from behind, and her eyes widened as Haruo collapsed into a twitching heap at her feat.

Behind Haruo, leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket and the other hand alive with lashes of electricity, was a skinny boy she'd never seen before wearing a frayed T-shirt.

"Wh-Who the hell are you?" Kishia demanded as her hands turned into bulging orbs of smoking rock. "Do you have any idea who we are?"

The intruder snickered as he held up a hand, a single spark of electricity dancing from fingertip to fingertip. "You have the arm band, don'cha? That makes you PREY, babe."

Kishia bristled as seams of magma began to cover her fists in an angry web of smoking red. "Prey? PREY? Nobody makes PREY out of the Protection Committee!"

"There is one bunch, darling," came a smooth, female voice from behind her. "We're fight club."

Kishia turned around in a backhand swing, but never saw, much less struck, the other assailant before a pair of huge, brown talons descended on her and her vision went dark.

* * *

"All right, here we are," Tsukune said as he approached Moka's room, feeling a little nervous despite himself. Though he had known Moka's room number for some time, he had never actually seen the interior or ventured inside.

Ranma came up behind his roommate silently, wondering what Tsukune was planning if he wasn't going to simply ask Moka to help take down the Enforcers.

Tsukune knocked on the door, and the two humans waited patiently as they heard movement from within.

"Senpai! Tag-along! Welcome!" Yukari said cheerfully as she swung the door open, dressed in a dark red negligee that left the underwear beneath just barely visible. "What brings you here this fine morning?"

Ranma and Tsukune stared.

Yukari flushed and clapped her hands on her cheeks. "Oh, come on now, don't stare!" The young witch said playfully. "I'm sure that at least Senpai is used to a lot more sex appeal than this!"

"That's not why we're staring," Tsukune deadpanned.

A moment later Moka came out behind Yukari, although the vampiress was properly dressed in her uniform, as usual.

"Tsukune! Ranma! Hi! What brings you by today?" Moka said cheerfully as she quickly shoved Yukari behind her. "Yukari, get dressed before you catch a cold!"

"Well, I WAS here to talk to you about renewing bonds of friendship and seeking forgiveness and stuff like that," Tsukune began, "but I have to admit that now I'm more interested in why Yukari is in your room half-naked."

Moka blushed slightly, but drew herself up defiantly. "It's those spiders."

Ranma's interest piqued immediately. "Spiders? What spiders?"

Moka frowned as she planted her hands on her hips. "Those spiders that you put in her room as a prank came back, and now she's afraid to sleep in her own room!"

"No they're not," Ranma responded bluntly. "They sleep in our room. I even trained them to stay in one little corner so they don't wander around the room anymore."

Moka blinked in surprise. "But Yukari said that you were keeping them there as some sort of bizarre training exercise, and that she had no other place to stay!" Moka insisted, not noticing as a black sheet wafted by her legs and floated through the doorway, as if carried on the wind.

"Moka, I can guarantee that either Ranma didn't do anything like that, or he has twice as many pet spiders as I thought he did," Tsukune said, stepping on a corner of the black cloth as it tried to float by him.

The cloth went taut immediately, and Yukari let out a yelp as her cape and collar came off, ruining her illusion spell and leaving her to fall onto her face.

"Uh... This sounds rather important, so I'll leave you to your deliberations," Yukari said shakily as she tugged her cape free, sweat beading on her brow.

"Not yet runt, we might need you later," Ranma said before he pointed to her cape. "Also, work on your escape routes. If you can't get past Tsukune, what are going to do if you tick off someone dangerous?"

"Yes, Senpai," Yukari said with a sigh.

Tsukune shook his head to clear it. "All right, look, we're getting sidetracked. This is more important than Yukari telling stories to..."

He trailed off uncertainly, glancing back at an increasingly embarrassed Moka. "So, wait, does she just sleep on the floor, or do you two-"

"What's more important than my stories?" Yukari demanded suddenly, interrupting his tangent.

"Right, sorry!" Tsukune said, straightening. "Ranma, do you have some thing you want to say to Moka?"

Ranma seemed surprised by the request, but that quickly gave way to discomfort as he rubbed the back of his head. "Uh, well, I guess I should say that I'm sorry."

Moka stepped back, looking completely stunned. "You are?"

Ranma nodded. "Yeah. It's not like it was my fault, but still, when you went all evil and crazy, I didn't think twice about cutting loose and it looks like I really hurt you." Steeling himself, the pigtailed boy bowed. "You didn't deserve that, and I'm sorry."

Tsukune nodded silently as he put a hand on Ranma's shoulder in encouragement. "Now, Moka, do you have something to say to Ranma?"

_'Tell him that I still hate him,'_ grumbled a voice in Moka's head.

Moka squirmed for a moment, but any resistance quickly crumbled under Tsukune's stare. "Ranma, I'm sorry too. I know we haven't always gotten along perfectly, but I've never trusted you even though you've done plenty to deserve it. And whether or not you deserve to be trusted, you definitely did NOT deserve to be attacked like that," the vampiress admitted before she too bowed. "Maybe if I had come clean earlier that fight could have been avoided entirely. I'm sorry."

Tsukune smiled as his friends straightened, both of them looking relieved.

"Now give each other a hug," Yukari said, popping up from behind Tsukune's legs.

Tsukune's smile vanished. "Well, you don't have to-"

He trailed off as Moka stepped forward and firmly embraced Ranma, and the martial artist promptly returned the gesture.

"Oh, okay, yeah. That's fine. Let's just get this all out of our systems," Tsukune mumbled weakly.

"Now let's finish with a make-up kiss," Yukari said seriously.

"Yukari!" Tsukune shouted.

"Is the cheek okay?" Ranma asked.

"RANMA!" Tsukune shouted again.

"Joking, joking!" Ranma said as he and Moka parted somberly.

Tsukune regained his composure before he continued. "Thank you both. I know that things have been a little tense since Evil Moka appeared, and I wanted to make sure the air was clear before we continued."

Ranma shrugged. "It wasn't that big a deal. I mean, if your life is in danger, it's not really important whether or not Moka's evil shadow-self or whatever hates me."

"No, it is important," Tsukune protested. "Ranma, you've been our protector ever since we got here. We rely on you a lot, and it's not right to do that if we're not willing to trust you. As we've already seen, that could put you in danger, and we can't do that to you."

Ranma stood silently as he weathered Tsukune's concern, lost for words.

Moka, on the other hand, gently clutched her Rosario before she spoke up again. "On that note, I have something else to say, actually. My... 'Other self' isn't placated. She's been... speaking to me since the battle, and she hasn't given up on beating you."

Ranma and Tsukune looked surprised. "Wait, she's been speaking to you?" Asked the latter.

Ranma's question was less redundant. "What's she saying right now?"

_'Tell him that I'll carve out his eye sockets the next time I see him,'_ a voice hissed from the Rosario.

Moka sweatdropped. "She says... She doesn't want to see you again."

_'No paraphrasing! Tell him his eyes are mine!'_

Tsukune looked concerned as he considered this new information. "So we can be sure that if Evil Moka emerges again, she'll attack you again."

Ranma nodded slowly. "I understand."

Then he backed away a few steps and took a defensive stance. "Okay, I'm ready. You can let her out."

As Moka and Tsukune gaped in shock, the Rosario twitched.

_'Do it. PLEASE,'_ Evil Moka snarled.

It was Tsukune who recovered first to ask the obvious question. "WHY?"

"Well, I looked over those photos that Mizore took, but they weren't as much help as I'd hoped. So I think maybe if I could see another one of her kicks in action again, I might be able to figure out the secret," Ranma reasoned.

_'Come on, let me out! He's literally asking for it!'_

"Don't worry! I'll take it easier on you this time," Ranma reassured an increasingly vexed Moka. "No water! I swear!"

Tsukune decided it was time to change the subject again before they got stuck on another tangent. Or put a new hole in the building. "We can work that out some other time, Ranma. For now we have more important concerns." He glanced behind him. "That means you can stop, Yukari."

Yukari, who had been assembling a makeshift bunker on the wall from hallway lockers and maintenance supplies, pouted at the wasted effort and put away her wand.

"Okay, so what's this about Aono's life being in danger?" Yukari asked. "Did the Enforcers figure out that he's been plotting against them?"

Ranma shook his head. "Worse. They found out he's a human."

_Clunk!_ Yukari's wand slipped from her numb fingers as her eyes went wide in shock. Behind Ranma, Tsukune and Moka facepalmed.

"Ranma, would you stop doing that?" Tsukune pleaded.

"Why? I figure we should be straight about it and get it out in the open, like what you did with me and Moka," Ranma reasoned.

"This is a little different from that," Moka interjected, quickly backing up Tsukune, "some students have deep-seated personal and racial grudges against humans. And many of those that didn't have started to fear and resent humans from having to attend Youkai Academy."

"What's the big deal? What did humans ever do to you?" Ranma asked, scratching his head.

"When I went to a human school, the other kids were always making fun of me for saying I was a vampire," Moka said, looking gloomy.

Ranma waited for a few seconds before he realized that she was done speaking. "Wait, that's it? They made fun of you?"

"It was a big deal to me, okay?" Moka said hotly, wringing her hands. "Do you know how it felt to have people denying your species like that?"

Ranma's eye twitched, and Moka promptly blushed.

"Oh, right. Well, since you have had to go through that, you should know how bad it makes a person feel!"

As Ranma rolled his eyes, Tsukune considered Moka's argument. "Did it make you feel worse than being harassed by Saizo, attacked by the Enforcers, or being forced to explore deadly ruins by a teacher?"

Moka blinked. "No... Not really..."

"Then give it a rest," Ranma snapped. "However bad you think humans are, monsters are mostly worse."

"Humans have persecuted witches for centuries," Yukari interjected, narrowing her eyes at Tsukune, "hundreds of us have died because of you!"

"Not that it's a contest or that this excuses anything," Tsukune mumbled, rubbing his head, "but don't the monsters do that too? And didn't Professor Jadeite say that witches killed off, like, a quarter of Europe?"

Yukari bristled. "Well... the humans started it!" She proclaimed, pointing at Tsukune accusingly.

"Relax, runt," Ranma said as he rubbed the young witches head through her hat. "Even if some humans are jerks, you know me and Tsukune. We're not like that."

"Don't be fooled, Senpai!" Yukari said, edging closer to the pigtailed boy, "humans may be weak and fragile, but they're also treacherous and cruel! I'll never trust a human!"

Yukari kept glaring at Tsukune until she felt the pressure on her head start to increase, and her face darkened as she began to sense a cold fury burning above her.

"Ah, Yukari, I think that was a bit much," Moka said nervously as a blue haze encircled Ranma. "Humans aren't THAT bad! I would know!"

"So would I!" Ranma growled through clenched teeth. "I'm one of them!"

Yukari glanced down at the floor. "Anyway, if Aono really is a human, then isn't getting rid of him legitimate? This means that the Enforcers are actually doing the right thing, for once."

"The right thing, huh?" Tsukune said quietly, causing Yukari to snap her head up and lock gazes with him.

The younger human rubbed the back of his head slowly as he stared down at the witch. "Do you really think that way? That it's okay to hurt someone based on the reputation of their race?"

Yukari grimaced as she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. "N-No, it's not that you deserve to die! I'm just saying that, well, you've deceived us for this long, so obviously you're not as harmless as you appear!"

"Deceived 'us'?" Ranma deadpanned, again squeezing Yukari's head to get her attention. "Me and Moka always knew he was a human, and you've never cared about him before. He's never lied to you."

Yukari started to falter as her shoulders slumped. "B-But we can't just-"

Her voice failed her as Tsukune placed a hand on her shoulder before dropping onto one knee before the young witch, so that he could look her eye-to-eye. "It's okay. I know you don't think like that. You're the smart one, right?" He smiled gently. "You might get scared and say something cruel, but you don't mean it. You wouldn't send someone to their death just for being a human. A witch would never stoop to that level, right?"

Yukari felt a flush crawl over her cheeks, and she cleared her throat before turning her head sharply away from Tsukune. "Of course I wouldn't! I just got a little carried away! I wasn't expecting to hear that boring, useless Aono had such a secret, and I was surprised, that's all!"

She sniffed as she brushed Tsukune's hand off her shoulder. "Anyway, if Senpai and Moka can trust a human like you, then I can at least trust them! So I'll cooperate!"

Ranma seethed as a vein popped up on his head, resisting the urge to grind his knuckles into Yukari's scalp. "I'm a human too, damn it..."

Tsukune smirked as he stood up again. "Thank you, Yukari. I'll try not to disappoint you." Then he nodded to Ranma. "Let's hurry. We need to find Kurumu and move out before the Protection Committee has any more time to prepare."

Ranma nodded and moved ahead of the girls to walk alongside Tsukune as he led the way down the hall.

"That was a pretty good speech back there," Ranma mumbled quietly enough so that Moka and Yukari couldn't hear, "I didn't think that Yukari might've said all that just because she was surprised."

Tsukune nodded firmly, feeling energized at the praise. Given how capable Ranma was at dealing with Youkai Academy, being complimented by the martial artist was extremely encouraging. "Well, genius or not, she's still a pre-teen girl," he whispered back, "you can't take all her outbursts so seriously."

They walked in silence a few more paces, and then Tsukune added, "Although now that I think about it, it's possible that she wasn't really scared of me at all and just saw an opportunity to get me out of the way so she wouldn't have any more obstacles between her and Moka."

Ranma sweatdropped as he watched his roommate's mood darken. "Ah. Yeah, I guess that also sounds like something she'd do. But either way you talked her out of it, right? Good job!"

As they reached Kurumu's room, Ranma stepped forward and rapped his knuckles on the door.

After a few seconds it cracked open, and Kurumu blinked as she saw her friends standing outside her room in the hallway, all of them looking unusually grim. "Huh? Tsukune, everyone... is something wrong?"

Tsukune was about to speak, but Ranma suddenly held up a hand and went first.

"Kurumu, Tsukune's a human," the pigtailed boy said bluntly, causing the others behind him to stagger.

Kurumu's eye bugged out. "What? He's... He's a human?"

"Yeah. Do you have any long-winded complaints or cheap prejudice that you need to get out in the open?" Ranma asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Kurumu cocked her head to one side as she considered the question. "No, nothing I can think of."

"Awesome. Then come with us. The Enforcers found out about him being human, so they're going to try and kill him."

"What? Those creeps!" Kurumu growled, stepping through the doorway and slamming it shut behind her. "Let's take them out, then!"

The succubus stormed off ahead of the others, and Ranma followed swiftly as the others stood silently in the hallway, gaping.

They recovered fairly quickly and followed after them, with Tsukune again moving to walk alongside Ranma.

"Well... your speech wasn't bad either," Tsukune admitted awkwardly after a few seconds. "It was very... efficient."

Ranma grinned. "Hey, thanks!"

* * *

"Huff... Huff... You're not... Huff... Bad..." Kana admitted between gasps, her throat burning.

"Haah... Haah... You too..." Mizore admitted from where she was squatting on the ground, her own breath coming out in short puffs of frosty mist.

Both girls were situated outside the main dormitory building, the surface of which had been scarred by blades of ice and disturbed by repeated sonic tremors. Every single window had been shattered by stray sonic blasts, and there was a major water pipe that had been gouged out of the building to provide a steady stream of water for ice attacks. Small knives of ice, rapidly melting without Mizore's attention, littered the ground, which had itself been shaken up from a shock wave.

The tenants of the dorm building didn't seem particularly disturbed by the devastation, and in fact many of them were leaning out of their broken windows and cheering their support for one or both fighters. They had quieted somewhat since Kana and Mizore had faltered, but occasionally a student would shout something provacative to try and get the girls back into the fight.

"Maybe... Huff... a truce? Huff!" Kana asked, her voice cracking slightly. She was breathing much harder than Mizore was, although that was mostly because her attacks were directly dependent on her lung capacity.

Mizore looked uncertain as she glanced to the side at the puddle of water that was collecting next to the dorms. She had taken the brunt of the damage during the combat, as she had no way of easily avoiding or stopping Kana's sonic blasts while the siren could shatter her weapons with ease. But despite the constant throbbing all over her body, it seems her opponent had been pushed to the edge of exhaustion. Surely if she were to push just a little further...

"Come on, Frosty! Get her!" Came an obnoxious cheer from above.

"Bird girl, what're you doin'? You're almost there!"

"Cat fight! Woo!"

Both combatants cast annoyed glares at the spectators, and then Mizore nodded.

"Fine... Truce," she mumbled as she raised one arm. Extended from the oversized sleeve of her outfit were five scythe-like blades of ice, and Mizore conspicuously drew them back into her shirt sleeve before a normal hand emerged a second later.

Kana sighed in relief and withdrew a bottle of water, drinking greedily as she folded her wings up and allowed them to melt into her back.

There were many disappointed noises from the rooms above, but the girls ignored it.

"So... do I get an apology for being attacked?" Mizore asked calmly as she started dusting herself off. Her outfit had several small tears in it from bits of shrapnel - most of it from her own weapons shattering right next to her - and her ears were still ringing slightly from the repeated sonic blasts.

Kana tilted her head back and gargled the water for a few seconds before spitting it onto the ground. "Are you going to apologize for being a stalker?" The siren grumbled as she started to take stock of her own injuries. She had mostly gotten off easy, as she could evade in the air and destroy Mizore's projectiles at will, but for the first few seconds of the battle she had been in the ice fairy's clutches and been hammered considerably. Her shoulder was badly bruised and one leg sported a trio of long cuts down her thigh.

Mizore snorted as she fell back onto her rear, brushing some hair out of her eyes. "Why should I? Ranma doesn't mind..."

"I mind," Kana said testily. Ordinarily she would've added a booming or hissing effect to the simple statement, but her throat was still sore.

"I don't care if you mind," Mizore pointed out.

"And I don't care if you mind being knocked off the wall like a stunned housefly," Kana snapped back.

Mizore glowered darkly at the siren, who glared back.

After a few seconds, however, the two purple-haired girls tired of the staring contest and relaxed their expressions.

"Why don't you just... you know, ask him out?" Kana asked as she put away her water bottle. "Not that I want you to, but it would definitely be better than stalking him, don't you think?"

Mizore cocked her head to the side. "I'm... not good at confronting people..." She admitted. "I don't really like being in the spotlight... and..."

Mizore hesitated and fell silent.

"And what?" Kana asked.

"What about you?" Mizore asked, ignoring the prompt. "You have no problem being around him... Why aren't you his girlfriend?"

Kana flinched. "Ah... Well..."

Mizore waited patiently, staring straight into the siren's eyes.

"I'm... trying," Kana hedged, "but it's hard! I can't even talk to people most of the time!"

Mizore raised an eyebrow. "You can't? You seem way too talkative to me..." The snow fairy mumbled, sticking a finger in her ear and twisting it back and forth.

Kana's eyes narrowed. "You piss me off, so you're an exception." It was true, too. Just the sight of the shaggy-haired girl caused her throat to itch in anticipation of chastising her... into unconsciousness, if need be. She hadn't been around Mizore very much, but every time she was her usual paralyzing shyness seemed like an absurd memory.

The two girls stared hard at each other again, although their expressions lacked the intensity of the last round of glares.

"So, hey, you chicks gonna make out, or what?" Called one of the boys still watching from above.

In response, Mizore raised one of her sleeves in the boy's direction, and a moment later a needle of ice shot out of it like an arrow.

_Thunk!_ "Augh! Hey! What the hell do-"

"YOU'RE TOO LOUD!" Kana boomed ironically, blasting the hapless student back into his room with the force of the shout.

Mizore finally pushed herself up off the ground and grimaced as she stared down at her long, striped socks that had been almost completely destroyed by bursts of rock and dirt. "I have to go change..."

"Me too," Kana said as she glanced at her leg. "Maybe I should see the nurse, too... Just how sterile are those claws of yours?"

Mizore frowned as she played with the lollipop in her mouth. "I keep them well below freezing temperature..."

"What in the blazes is going on here?"

The girls glanced to the side at the sudden shout, only to see a short, pink-haired child they had never seen before.

"Who are you people? What happened here?" Saffron demanded, glaring harshly at the pair. "Are you two responsible for this?"

Both girls nodded reluctantly.

"Idiots! What have you done to my room?" Saffron demanded as his hands suddenly lit ablaze. He was staring at the point where Mizore had damaged a water pipe, and more specifically the particular unit where much of the water had leaked into.

Mizore noted where Saffron was staring, and then calmly started walking towards him. Kana shrugged and followed a moment later.

"Say something!" Saffron growled as the schoolgirls approached, the flames around his hands swirling into bulging fireballs. "How are you going to pay for-"

Saffron's demands were cut off suddenly as Mizore patted his head, instantly encasing the Phoenix king in a block of ice and putting out the fires.

"That's a nice trick," Kana mumbled as she stopped and knocked on the ice block.

"It doesn't hold for very long, though..." Mizore noted as she walked by.

Kana frowned at this, and then cleared her throat.

"Hmmm! Hmmm! H-M-M-M!"

_Skrak!_ A deep crack blasted through the ice block as Kana's voice reached the perfect harmonic frequency, and then the siren turned around and left right before the upper portion of the frozen Phoenix slid away from the lower portion, leaving Saffron's legs and hips standing on their own as his chest, arms, and head tumbled away.

After a few more seconds, the encasing ice spontaneously shattered and crumbled away as Mizore said it would, leaving two separated and extremely distressed halves of Saffron lying on the ground in a dirty puddle.

"Hate... this place... so much..." The Phoenix king managed to gasp out before death overtook him yet again.

* * *

"You can't be serious. The fight club? Here?" Jin demanded as he glared down at Kishia, who was lying on a cot as Fran Madaraki sewed up a pair of wide, glowing gashes over her cheek.

"I am serious," Kishia said, trying to remain as still as possible as the school nurse worked. "They ambushed me and Haruo without provocation. And they alluded to... a hunt," the elemental finished bitterly.

Jin leaned in, one eyebrow perking up. "A hunt? For what?"

"For US! The Enforcers!" Kishia hissed. "They called us prey! PREY! The fight club is stalking our very offices now, attacking us directly! This is no longer a matter of disruption or defiance! The fight club has effectively declared WAR!"

Fran finished drawing closed Kishia's cheek, and then cut the string. "Finished. I used an asbestos composite thread, so it should be safe for you to change forms, although I would advise against putting any significant stress on your body until your core heals fully."

Jin frowned. "Isn't asbestos dangerous? I remember hearing something like that in my review of the building codes."

"It has been known to significantly increase risk of cancer in humans, but its effects on elemental creatures are completely unknown," Fran pointed out to the senior Enforcer before turning back to her patient. "On that note, please make sure to return as soon as the scar tissue has finished forming. I have a LOT of tests to run."

Kishia sweatdropped at the obvious anticipation that the nurse displayed. 'I really hate monster doctors. Psychos, every one of them.'

Jin sniffed haughtily as he turned around. "Very well. I will see to this incursion myself, and see the fight club stopped in their tracks. You and the gargoyle are dismissed from duty pending your return to combat readiness."

"Yes, Captain Jin," Kishia grumbled, only to be ignored as the senior Enforcer walked quickly out of the office.

Jin clasped his hands behind his back as he returned to the Protection Committee offices, the gears in his head turning furiously.

Naturally, Jin had a plan in case of someone being foolish enough to attack the Protection Committee directly, but he wasn't very confident of it in a case like this. Most of the imagined foes of the Enforcers were disgruntled, rioting students or ultra-powerful, single monsters seeking to rebel against the foremost authority on campus.

The enemy in this case were a group of loosely organized and independently capable brawlers fighting small skirmishes in the halls. A far more dynamic and dangerous force.

"Speak of the devil," mumbled Jin as a grate leading to an air duct rattled above him.

The Enforcer leapt to the side as the grate popped off, spitting out something small onto the floor. Jin didn't get a good look at it, but that didn't matter a moment later when the assailant shifted fully into his normal-sized human form.

"Ooh, you're a sharp one. Were you expecting me?" The fight club member asked as he took a rough fighting stance and grinned.

"This was within the parameters of my short-term hallway defense back-up plan, yes," Jin explained seriously, "as is your fellow fight club member behind me."

A surprised gasp came from behind a door just a meter down the hall behind Jin, and that door opened to reveal a girl with long, rough brown hair and unusually long and sharp nails.

"Interesting. So how does your 'plan' deal with a situation like this, eh?" The boy asked, cracking his knuckles.

"Like so," Jin said simply as he shoved a fist toward his first assailant.

The attack was fairly slow and telegraphed, so the ambusher stepped out of the way with ease.

Or at least, he would have if the fist didn't swell to four times its original size mid-punch.

_Wham!_ The boy let out an awkward cry of pain and surprise as the massive gray knuckles found their mark, slamming into his shoulder with the force of a speeding pickup truck and sending him spinning off to the side.

The girl seemed stunned at first, and then grit her teeth as she stared at the Enforcer angrily.

"Really, you shouldn't be so full of yourselves," Jin said as he flexed his arm. By now it had shifted fully into its monster form, and had swollen thick with muscle and sprouted a coat of long gray hair all over.

"I'll be more than enough to deal with the likes of you," the senior Enforcer growled as the rest of his body started to bulge, tearing the upper half of his uniform apart at the seams.

The girl watched the transformation nervously, her eyes slowly creeping up as Jin grew bigger and bigger. "Yheti... Damn."

* * *

"Hello again everyone! Are you ready to learn all about yhetis?" Shizuka Nekonome asked cheerfully as she tapped the blackboard behind her.

Scrawled on the surface was a picture of a snow man with a huge vein throbbing over its head, and a small diagram of an ice cube surrounded by arcane gibberish.

"Yhetis are a type of monster that live in high mountain peaks all over the world, far above altitudes that most animal species, including humans, can comfortably survive in! This has resulted in extreme adaptation to cold weather!"

"While most people would assume that the yheti is merely a feral, over-adapted mammal, this is incorrect!" Shizuka stated while shaking her head. "The yheti is actually an elemental beast; it doesn't need to protect itself against the cold because ice is its core element!"

Shizuka tapped the picture of the ice cube. "Because of this, a yheti's body temperature is actually much COLDER than that of the areas where they tend to live, and it allows them to blow gusts of freezing ice to defend themselves. The yheti's thick coat of hair, which most people assume is for insulation, is mostly to provide extra traction in a snow-slick environment and protect their bodies from wind-blown hail."

"Yhetis live in small, nuclear families rather than tribes or packs, and inside their territory usually consider all creatures outside of their immediate family to be either food or a nuisance. Outside in relative civilization, they tend to be lazy and easy-going, but woe betide the one who angers a yheti!"

Shizuka moved to the far end of the blackboard, which had a picture of the snowman from before tearing the tentacles off a kraken with its mouth composed of coal chunks spread into a maniacal grin.

"Unlike, say, a hellhound, whose temper is sudden and explosive, a yheti's temper is more like a blizzard, slow to build but nearly unstoppable once unleashed. Possessed of super strength, magical frost breath and a body so numb with cold that they can barely feel pain, the yheti is difficult to put down once enraged. Better to let it chill out!"

With a vapid smile on her face and her tail swishing back and forth behind her, Shizuka waved goodbye. "That's all! See you next time!"

* * *

"Son of a BWAUGH!"

The girl tried to dodge out of the way as Jin barreled toward her, but as she ducked back into the room she had stepped out of, Jin's hand darted in after her, clasping firmly around her shoulders and yanking her back out into the hallway.

The unfortunate fight club member gulped as she stared up at Jin's true form: nearly nine feet tall, with a dome-shaped head that sat directed on the shoulders with no neck to speak of, Jin's torso took up almost the entire hallway. Black eyes like gleaming drops of pitch peeked out from behind a long carpet of thick gray hair, and the Enforcer's mouth was full of dull yellow tusks that poked out from beneath thick brown lips. Only the yheti's lower torso retained any semblance of Jin's former proportions, and even the relatively short, stocky legs were straining the seams of his pants from the transformation.

"So here's my plan: you're going to go to sleep now. When you wake up, you're going to pick up your friend there and leave this area. And the next time you or someone else considers coming back, you're going to think, 'no, I really prefer having all of my bones not broken'. How does that sound?" Jin asked, holding the girl up in the air as he opened and closed his free hand threateningly.

"Sounds like you're counting me out too early!" Snapped a male voice from behind, and Jin glanced behind him as the male fight club member stumbled back to his feet as his nails lengthened into talons.

It wasn't terribly intimidating to the massive yheti, but it was enough of a distraction that the girl in his hand saw an opening. Curling up from under her skirt, a long, segmented, scythe-tipped tail slashed into Jin's forearm, quickly shooting out a burst of venom before whipping back where it came.

Jin grunted as he felt the attack, and a rumbling growl came from the back of his throat before he hurled his current prisoner at the foe behind him.

The boy managed to catch his partner roughly, only staggering back a few steps before putting her down on her feet. "Ow! Hey! Be careful!"

Jin grimaced as he stared at the gouge in his arm, as well as the hissing green ooze that seeped from it.

Then he pulled out a small black book from his back pocket and carefully thumbed it open, much to the confusion of his opponents.

"Poison... Poison..." Jin mumbled as he searched the book. "Ah, here we are: in case of poison, the first thing to do is punch the one who poisoned you in the head. Repeat as necessary or desired. There are no other steps."

As the girl's expression darkened, her partner merely looked confused. "How does that help with the poison?"

Jin shrugged as he pounded a fist into his palm. "Sometimes when you kill the person that poisoned you, the poison is broken."

"I'm pretty sure you're thinking of curse-" the boy began to argue back before he was seized by the back of his collar.

"Stop arguing with him and RUN!" The girl screamed as she dragged her partner down the hall.

Jin snorted heavily as he watched the pair run, great puffs of frosty air blasting from his nostrils.

"Hmph. Waste of a plan," the yheti grumbled as he turned around and walked down the halls, idly scratching his wounded arm all the while.

After wandering deeper into the Enforcer's offices for several minutes, Jin turned toward into the Enforcer's personal lounge and shoved open the door.

"Hm? Who-" one of the room's occupants turned around sharply when he heard the door burst open, and the color drained from his face as he saw the hulking beast standing in the doorway.

"L-Lord Kaishuu!" Stammered another of the room's occupants, a gloomy-looking kid who had been reading a magazine. "Wh-Why are you out of human form, sir?"

Jin remained silent as he waited for the other occupants of the room to notice him and lurch to their feet.

Once they had done so, the yheti calmly took stock of the men he had found: a skinny boy nervously fiddling with a switchblade, the gloomy, emaciated boy who had recognized him, a large boy built like a football star, and a short kid with shaggy white hair.

"Monster forms! Now!" The senior Enforcer barked, causing the others to flinch back. "We have a major security breach on our hands, so all members of the Protection Committee are to maintain combat readiness until further notice!"

The lesser Enforcers wasted no time protesting, and promptly shifted into their monster forms: a pumpkin-headed lantern, a bone dragon, a tree golem, and the winged, white-furred holy dragon.

Jin frowned at the last monster. "Wait, weren't you killed in action the other day?"

"We're Netherworld monsters," the holy dragon explained dutifully, "death doesn't stop us for long... Well, so long as we have money, anyway."

"That's actually quite interesting and possibly important, but I just can't bring myself to care right now," Jin admitted, his voice a low rumble as the yheti crossed his arms over his chest. "You all have a new task, starting now: protect Volos!"

The lantern started. "Wait, our student council rep? What's going on?"

"I have reason to believe that members of the fight club, and specifically Ranma Saotome, are looking to reduce our influence in the student council by taking out our representative. I have a plan to counter this."

Though the Netherworld minions quailed at the mention of Ranma, they perked up when Jin said he had a plan.

"All right, so what do we do?" Asked the tree golem as he cracked his knuckles.

"You're to find Volos in his personal office around the council meeting room," Jin explained. "And then, when he is attacked, you are to throw yourself at the enemy in a desperate bid for time so that Volos can escape at the insignificant cost of your lives."

Each of the lesser Enforcers waited patiently for Jin to laugh and reveal he was joking, and each of them felt disappointment and dread well up within them as their superior remained silent.

"Do you... maybe have a plan that DOESN'T involve us dying?" Asked the bone dragon nervously. "I mean, like goody-two-shoes said, it's not necessarily permanent for us, but I'm a little short on cash this week..."

"Of course, I have several plans that depend on my subordinates to act swiftly and with competence to firmly and completely crush the foe," Jin explained, "but looking at you four, I'd rather use a plan that relies on your bloody, painful demise. Much better chances of success." Then he stepped aside and pointed toward the hall. "Now move out, Protection Committee! The future of our fine institution depends on it!"

There were a great deal of grumbles and pitiful moans as the Netherworld monsters shuffled into the halls, but none dared voice direct opposition to the massive snow beast as they rushed along their way.

Once they were out of earshot, the lantern sighed. "Damn it. I thought we were done with Saotome and his lackeys once and for all."

The bone dragon raised his head slightly as he trudged through the halls. "Actually, I heard that Aono was the mastermind and Saotome is HIS lackey."

"That doesn't make much sense. Why would Saotome take orders from someone so much weaker than him?"

"Unless Aono ISN'T actually weaker than him," the lantern mused. "Nobody knows what kind of monster they are, right? We know Saotome is strong in his human form; what if Aono is some kind of monster who's only strong when he transforms? And Saotome's the only one strong enough to have actually faced him all-out before?"

As the other minions mulled this over, the tree golem suddenly spoke up. "Actually, I heard some kind of rumor around the compliance squad that he's a human."

The other Enforcers stopped dead in their tracks.

After a few seconds of standing in the middle of the hall, completely stunned, the skeletal dragon suddenly laughed.

"Ha! Yeah, right! A human! Fat chance!"

The lantern sniggered as he tossed a dagger into the air and caught it again on the way down. "Next you'll be telling us that Saotome is a human, too, and that's why he never transforms to fight."

"Hey, let's not be ridiculous here," the golem grumbled. "I mean, it's at least POSSIBLE if we're talking about Aono, right?"

"If he's a human and the Protection Committee knows about it, why haven't they told us yet?" The holy dragon said as he shook his head. "There's a limit to official incompetence, you know. Something that important would be broadcast throughout the ranks of the committee, if not the entire school."

The tree golem frown, scratching at the single leaf on the back of his head. "Ah. I guess you have a point. That does seem like the kind of thing we'd all be informed about, huh?"

As the hulking mass of vegetation trailed off in embarrassment, he and the other Enforcers slowed as they came to a large set of iron double-doors.

"So... I've never been here before. Is this the entrance to the student council's office or something?" Asked the bone dragon.

The lantern sighed. "No. This is Volos' office. I've been here before."

The tree golem reaches for one of the huge metal rings one the doors, but hesitated.

"Uh, guys? It might be too late to bring this up, but if I don't survive this, I don't have enough money to pay for my resurrection," the tree golem admitted.

"Ah, you too?" Grumbled the bone dragon.

"Yeah, actually, I might have to take out a loan as well," the lantern said, scratching the back of his bulbous head.

Slowly, the three minions turned toward their white-furred companion, who flinched back.

"Wh-What? I'm the only one with money? What happened to you guys?"

"Well, they've been selling those special beef bowls in the cafeteria lately," the lantern said bashfully, shrugging his shoulders.

The bone dragon nodded. "Oh, yeah! Delicious, but pricey!"

"I'm surprised you have money, actually," the tree golem said. "I mean, you actually had to pay for a revive recently, right? Do you not eat beef bowls or something?"

"Tch! I'll have you know that I don't spend money on frivolous things for precisely this sort of occasion," the holy dragon lectured, "although, since you asked, no, I don't eat beef. I'm a vegetarian."

There was a long pause before the bone dragon asked, "Seriously?"

"Yes. Killing animals for food is unnecessary and cruel. I only eat plants," the holy dragon said proudly.

The tree golem's eyes narrowed. "Fuck you."

"So, are you four planning on going in, or what? You're not the only one waiting to see this Volos guy."

The Netherworld monsters remained shock-still for several seconds before they slowly turned their heads to look behind them.

The lantern swallowed noisily as he beheld Ranma Saotome staring at them, his arms crossed over his chest and a distinctly irritated expression on his face.

Behind the pigtailed boy, looking equally displeased, was Tsukune, Moka, Kurumu, and Yukari.

"Hey, I remember you clowns! You're the jerks that tried to capture us as bait for Senpai!" Yukari exclaimed angrily as she pulled a large card decorated with magical scrawl from beneath her hat.

Tsukune blinked as he recognized the white-furred demon. "Hey, it's that nice Enforcer! He's okay!"

"Yeah, I got better," grumbled the holy dragon as his eyes swept back and forth across their opponents. "So, how do want to do this? There's still time to turn back, you know. You don't need to head down this path!"

"You don't say," Ranma mumbled as he walked forward, clearly disinterested as he cracked his knuckles.

"Wait!" Tsukune shouted suddenly, stepping in front of Ranma. "The same goes for you, you know!"

The dragon raised an eyebrow. "What? What do you mean?"

"You don't have to stand in our way!" Tsukune clarified. "None of you do! Look, you guys attacked us, and you got beaten up for it! As far as I'm concerned, we're even! There's no need for you to fight us any longer!"

Kurumu and Yukari drew aside in surprise as Tsukune stepped forward, and Moka smiled as the human boy continued.

"You don't have to get clobbered trying to defend this corrupt, useless regime! There's no reason to stand in our way!" Tsukune said passionately, gripping a hand into a fist in front of him. "Walk away now, and we can put aside our differences! We can build a better future for us, and Youkai Academy, together!"

The holy dragon slowly lowered his head. "I see... well then, go on ahead..." Then he raised his head again. "Is what I'd like to say, but things aren't that simple," the white-furred Enforcer explained as his gaze hardened. "When I joined the Protection Committee, I swore to uphold ALL the rules to protect Youkai Academy, not just the-"

_Crash!_ The dragon's counter-speech was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass, and his eyes bugged out as he noticed that his three companions were at the side of the hall, escaping out the window. The lantern had evidently led the way and was even now sprinting away outside, and the tree golem struggled to get its wooden bulk through the window as the skeletal dragon alternated between shoving him with his snout and casting nervous glances backward.

"Th-Thank you, Lord Aono!" The undead monster stuttered, idly smacking the golem in the back with his tail, "we'll never forget your boundless mercy and wisdom!" Then he growled at the wood golem, "and at the rate THIS fatass is making his retreat, I certainly hope it IS boundless!"

"W-Wait! Don't retreat!" The holy dragon cried as sweat started to bead along his head. "What about our oath to the Protection Committee? What about justice?"

"You look like you've got that angle covered, boy scout!" The bone dragon said as he finally managed to ram the golem out the window. "Oof! Besides, you're the only one with resurrection money, remember? Never lose hope! Never surrender!"

Then he hopped onto the window sill. "So long! We'll visit you in the nurse's office!"

The holy dragon gaped as the last of his comrades made good their retreat, leaving him behind.

"Huh. Somehow, this doesn't really feel right, but if you're determined to stand your ground, then there's nothing I can do," Ranma said as he stepped forward, bringing up his arms loosely.

"Ranma, could you go a little easy on him?" Aono asked, "I don't think he really deserves what you're about to do to him."

"Don't you make a fool of me!" The holy dragon shouted, although he had tears in his eyes at the time. Then he flapped his wings mightily, lifting him up near the ceiling. "Even alone, outnumbered, outgunned, and with an objective that conflicts directly with my strict moral framework, I won't let you just do as you please!"

Ranma tensed his legs as if to jump, but hesitated as a sweatdrop rolled down his head. "Uh, do you need a minute? I mean, I'd rather not fight you while you're still crying."

"Shut up! Just die already!" The holy dragon shouted before sweeping his wings forward. In that moment, dozens of feathers from the demon's shining white wings shot forward like waves of arrows, straight toward the martial artists waiting on the ground.

"Hmm..." Ranma's hands became blurs as he plucked the arrows out of the air, snatching even the ones that were likely to miss so that those behind him wouldn't get hit accidentally.

"Okay, well... Sorry about this," Ranma mumbled as he let his fingers go slack, releasing the bunches of shining white feathers to float softly to the floor.

Then he launched himself upward toward the gaping holy dragon.

"Wow, Tsukune, what was with that speech? You sent those guys packing!" Kurumu said admirably as she suddenly grabbed the human boy in a hug from behind.

Tsukune flushed both from the praise and the feeling of Kurumu's breasts being squeezed against his back. "It wasn't me, I'm pretty sure that had more to do with Ranma..." He winced as he heard the holy dragon cry out, which was followed by the sound of splintering wood.

Yukari rubbed her chin as she narrowed her eyes at Tsukune. "I see... There's a legendary technique among humans, usually possessed by the political and religious leaders of their kind. I believe it's called 'rhetoric'."

"Ah, no, that's not really a legendary technique," Tsukune pointed out as he sweatdropped.

Yukari, however, had Moka and Kurumu's complete attention as she continued. "A master rhetorician can make others do anything they want, even against their better interests, same as a hypnosis spell! Who knew that Aono had such a fearsome power!"

"No, I'm not a master rhetorician, that last line was actually from an old movie I saw," Tsukune protested, although he had a feeling it wouldn't make a difference. "And really, giving up was in their best interests..."

"Whoa! Careful! I think he's still using it!" Yukari cried, putting her arms up to defend herself.

_Wham!_ The holy dragon yelped painfully as he bounced off of the wrought-iron doors of Volos' office door, luckily avoiding the spikes as he slumped onto the floor in a heap.

"That was easy," Ranma mumbled as he squatted next to the fallen demon. "Do you give up yet? I really don't want to fight you anymore."

"I will... fight to my... last... hit point, miscreant..." The holy dragon gasped out.

Ranma frowned as he stood up. "Okay, the winged dog-thing gives up."

"I'm a... holy... dragon, you..." The rest came out as an unintelligible garble as Ranma picked him up. "Moka, could you take him to the nurse's office?"

"Right away!" The vampiress said, somewhat cheered by the fact that someone was giving her a task, even if that someone was Ranma.

As Moka lifted the moaning Enforcer in her arms, Ranma stepped toward the metal office doors, grabbing hold of the massive rings that functioned more or less as knobs.

"All right, bastard! Your guards are gone and you've got nowhere to run!" The martial artist shouted as he tugged the door open. "It's time to-WAUGH!"

Ranma shouted in surprise as a net seemed to launch from the opening between the two doors, spreading out in a spiral as hundreds of sticky threads wrapped around Ranma's body.

"Ranma! WHOA!" Tsukune was no more fortunate as small balls of sticky webbing attached to the first net seemed to burst open in a cascade, filling long stretches of the hallway with long, sticky webs and entangling Tsukune, Yukari, and Kurumu in moments.

Only Moka, who had been leaving the area with the holy dragon, had been outside the trap's effective radius, and she promptly stopped in her tracks.

"Tsukune! Are you okay?" Moka asked, dropping the holy dragon carelessly as she rushed back toward the others.

"Moka! Wait! Stay back!" Tsukune shouted as he struggled against the webs that held his arms and legs fast. "If you touch the webs, you'll get stuck too!"

"But..." Moka hesitated as she watched the others struggling against the threads. Wasn't there anything she could do?

"Damn, I was careless!" Ranma growled. He tugged experimentally at the threads, trying to test the relative strengths of the wrappings around each limb. "Kurumu, can you cut yourself free?"

"Mmhrgh!" Kurumu grunted as she extended her fingernails and tried to draw her hands closer together so she could cut away at the threads; whether by some quirk of fate or a stubbornly persisting theme, the succubus had been bound in such a way that her arms were stretched up over her head, causing her breasts to squeeze together as they were shifted up.

Yukari had her arms free, but her wand had been hit and tugged from her grasp such that it was infuriatingly suspended just a few inches out of reach.

"Don't think you'll get out of this so easily," hissed an angry, feminine voice.

Ranma turned his head as best he could as a slim, feminine figure with straight black hair and thin, dark lines under her eyes slowly emerged from the office. "You're not Volos, are you?"

"You should do your research more carefully when planning an attack," Keito said haughtily as she sauntered out of Volos' office. "The student council is in session right now, and of course Volos is with them. You're MY prey."

Ranma smirked as he started to pulled one of his arms closer, feeling the webbing strain against his strength. "You don't think something like this is enough to stop ALL of us, do you Boss Spider?"

Keito snorted. "I don't... uh..." She trailed off. "Wait, Boss Spider? What?"

"You're that giant spider that's been attacking students around campus, aren't you?" Ranma said, still smirking. "You remember me, don't you?"

Keito was stunned silent for several seconds. "No, I'm not! What do you mean a giant spider's been attacking students? I never heard anything about this!"

"Are you serious? What if someone had died?" Tsukune cried out.

"What do you mean, 'what if'? I'm pretty sure the body count is at least eight people, by now," Yukari muttered as she continued groping for her wand.

"Never mind that!" Keito suddenly said, deciding to drop the subject, "I am no 'Boss Spider'! My name is Keito, Lord Kuyo's right hand!" The senior Enforcer declared as her shirt bulged around the abdomen and her cheeks started to swell.

Undershirt and jacket ripped apart as four long, pointed legs unfolded improbably from Keito's belly, and Keito's grin became even more wicked as a pair of fang-tipped mandibles emerged from the corners of her mouth. Additional eyes opened up on the sides and top of her head, and the exposed skin of her face, arms, and legs started to harden into yellow chitin.

Within moments Ranma was staring impassively at the huge spider as she stalked through the folds of webbing. "Nope. Not Boss Spider. So, what, you're just a regular spider woman, then?"

* * *

"Hey everyone! Welcome once again to the monster encyclopedia segment!" Shizuka Nekonome cheered, her tail whipping back and forth behind her. "Today we get an extra segment to talk about spider monsters!"

Shizuka tapped her pointer against a diagram of a proper spider's underside, and then brought it along to a second diagram which looked like some sort of cross between a spider and a human: the second diagram lacked a swollen abdomen, and the body was a proper torso rather than a segmented arthropod body. In addition, its front most arms possessed fingers, and it had a full head of hair.

"We've talked before about spider monsters versus giant spiders, but this segment will touch more on ordinary spider monsters, rather than their barbaric exceptions."

Shizuka smiled brightly as she drew the pointer to a chalk drawing of a cluster of small woodland animals surrounding a human girl. It was labeled "food".

"Spider monsters are predatory monsters that live all throughout the world, and are generally well-versed when it comes to living among humans. They are masters of stealth, traps, and other deceitful tactics."

"Spider monsters eat all manner of creatures, including humans. However, the females of the species have gained a particularly nasty reputation, as they often use their human forms to seduce human men into their lairs before trapping and eating them. Because this tactic doesn't work nearly as well for the male monsters, females usually eat a lot more humans."

Shizuka took out a piece of chalk and started drawing a web pattern on the blackboard.

"In combat, spider monsters spit nets of webbing to immobilize their prey before attacking with powerful venoms. A spider monster's webbing is as strong as steel cable, and its highly acidic venom, although usually non-lethal in the short-term, can paralyze and weaken even the mightiest of demons! Some monsters develop special abilities that allow them to spit poison too, or control swarms of normal spiders, or form webbing balls that explode into nets that wrap around enemies!"

Shizuka shook her head. "However, spider monsters are not aggressive fighters, and will only engage in battle if they have a significant advantage or if they have no choice. A spider monster that senses a threat to itself will always be careful to leave itself an escape route, if it doesn't flee outright. These cowardly traits, however, just spur these eight-legged monsters toward more extreme and more treacherous behavior in their efforts to avoid a fair fight at all costs. Never turn your back on one!"

Shizuka bowed. "That's all I have for you this time! See you next time!"

* * *

Keito snorted. "Regular spider woman? Hmph. Awfully cheeky coming from someone who stands at my mercy," she said, walking forward along six of her eight limbs. Her feet never touched the ground, instead stepping onto the stretches of webbing that criss-crossed the halls.

"Who says I'm at YOUR mercy? Try me!" Ranma goaded, tightening his hands into fists.

Keito laughed briefly before she jumped to the side, landing on a vertical stretch of web before she leapt again onto a patch that hung directly over Tsukune.

"While I'd love to make a snack out of the 'big, bad Ranma Saotome' that everyone's been screeching about, you're not my target today. Count yourself lucky."

"H-Hey!" Tsukune shouted out as four long, spike-tipped legs lowered themselves around him, each one slipping between the folds of webbing with ease and cutting apart the threads that had coiled around his arms.

"Why you! Leave him alone, you oversized garden pest!" Kurumu growled as she managed to scratch at the webbing wrapped around her left wrist.

"Ha ha ha ha! Don't worry, we won't forget about the rest of you!" Keito promised as she hauled the struggling Tsukune up and wrapped her central legs around him. Then she started to scuttle along her webs down the hall, away from Volos' office. "The consequences for harboring a human and conspiring to overthrow the Protection Committee will be... Huh?"

Keito mumbled the last bit as she felt something latch onto her leg, and for a moment she thought she she had gotten herself snagged on her own webbing. It did happen from time to time, and the boy in her arms wasn't making it any easier to navigate the folds.

But typically webbing didn't throw you across the room like that.

"Let GO of him!" Moka shouted, squeezing her eyes shut as she swung Keito about with all her might.

"Bwaugh!" Keito yelped as she hit the floor on her back, and her legs reflexively spread open to help control her tumbling as she bounced.

Tsukune, as a result, was flung from her grasp and into the air, but luckily managed to avoid a painful landing as he fell onto a bed of soft fur.

"Gwargh!" The holy dragon cried out in pain as Tsukune landed flat on top of him, and the demon's wings twitched weakly.

"Sorry about that!" Tsukune apologized as he rolled off the Netherworlder, well aware that the unfortunate demon was in a critical state.

"Tsukune! Run!" Moka called as pointed to Keito, who was back on her feet and clearly enraged.

"You won't get away from me!" Snarled the spider woman, spitting a bolt of webbing at Tsukune's feet.

If asked about it later, Tsukune would have attributed his dodging the webbing shot to pure luck, as well as his dodging the next three shots. But Ranma couldn't help but notice an element of hardened experience to the nerve-wracking hops and leaps that took Tsukune around the corner and out of Keito's line of fire. As if the younger boy had recently had to dodge a lot of deadly projectiles as of late...

"Damnation!" Keito raged as Moka and Tsukune rounded the corner, her last webbing shots splashing uselessly against the wall. "Was that Akashiya? Damn it all, what else could go wrong?"

_Snap! Snap!_ Kurumu finished cutting away the webs around her legs, and then her wings practically exploded from her back as she glared at the arachnoid monster.

"You're mine, you fanged freak!" She snarled, dashing forward and slashing away the webbing attached to Yukari's side in passing.

Keito's eyes (those ones facing Kurumu, anyway) narrowed, and she promptly bolted down the hall after her target, with Kurumu in hot pursuit.

Yukari jumped up to snatch her wand free from the webbing, and then drew a card from under her hat. "Senpai, here!" She shouted, loosing the razor-edged tarot and slicing away a good chunk of the numerous folds wrapped around Ranma.

"Thanks, squirt!" The martial artist called as he tugged his arm free, and then started ripping away at the other threads. "Gimme a second, I'll be right behind you!"

Yukari swiftly shook her head. "No Senpai, let us take care of Aono!" She insisted. "You know where the Protection Committee rep is, right? Go take him out! We'll protect Mister Motivational Speeches in the meantime!"

"Huh? But..." Ranma hesitated as he worked his legs free.

"Don't worry!" Yukari said as she rushed to the corner where the others had gone, "we're just saving him from one overgrown spider! You have to save him from the entire Committee! And that can only happen if you beat down that rep! Stick to the plan!"

Ranma watched the young witch dash off, and cast his gaze around the hall, at the shredded folds of webbing, the scattered dragon feathers, and the cracks in the wall that marked where he had smashed the hapless Netherworld demon.

"All to make the school safe, huh?" Ranma thought as a smile spread across his face. "Well, I don't really care about that, but if it's important to Tsukune, then I'll let the others look after him, just this once."

He grabbed onto a fold of webs, and the sticky threads snapped noisily as he walked deeper into the office complex, ripping the webbing from the walls as he went.

"All right, Volos... Let's see what you got."

Absolute silence dominated the halls after Ranma's departure, broken after several seconds by a pained whimper.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Asked the holy dragon, his body still twitching slightly.

"I... I can't actually move right now. Am I still getting taken to the nurse? Guys? Lady Keito? Lord Volos? Miscreants? ANYBODY?"

* * *

"Get back here, insolent bug!" Keito howled as she leapt onto the wall of the hallway, taking a moment to stabilize herself before spitting another bolt of silken webbing at Moka and Tsukune.

"Tsukune, look out!" Moka shouted, pushing the human boy aside right before the webbing blast hit her legs. It immediately split open into a wide net that wrapped around her calves before spreading out over and attaching to the floor, holding the vampiress firmly in place.

Tsukune, however, completely avoided being entangled as Moka's sudden shove sent him tumbling roughly into the wall. "Ow! Hey!"

Keito clicked her tongue as she tried to work more webbing into her mouth, but stopped as the eyes atop her head glimpsed a certain winged monster girl rounding the corner after her.

"Bloody hell," the monstrous arachnid cursed as she jumped off the wall right before Kurumu cut a deep gouge into it. She couldn't keep going like this, and she knew it; she was neither accustomed to nor suited for running down victims, and if she focused either on the group chasing her or the group running away, it was almost guaranteed that she would either let her prey escape or get eviscerated.

'I have to think of a solution! I can't keep this up much longer!' Keito thought angrily as she leapt up and grabbed onto the ceiling, her hair swinging down underneath her as she scurried down the hall where Tsukune was trying to help Moka get free. Climbing on the ceiling wouldn't keep her completely from the succubus' reach, but given how narrow the halls were, at least her pursuer would probably have to resort to jumping at her rather than risking full flight and hitting something.

"Tsukune, don't worry about me! She's after you! Run!" Moka shouted, glancing nervously at the approaching Enforcer.

The human boy hesitated, naturally, but then darted back just enough to avoid a small dart of webbing that splattered against the ceiling. "All right, but be careful!" Tsukune said as he dashed under a stairwell, blocking Keito's line of fire as he turned toward the first door he could find and flung it open.

He was quite surprised, and equally frustrated, to see a massive, muscular, humanoid creature covered in gray hair standing in front of him.

"Excuse me! I need to get through!" Tsukune said immediately, ducking as he tried to squeeze past the beast.

Much to his surprise, the hairy monster suddenly grabbed him and then flung him back into the hall, causing him to land painfully on his back and roll across the floor.

"Ha ha! I have you now!" Keito said as her victim suddenly bounced back into view, and she inhaled deeply as she prepared to shoot another web ball.

"That's MY LINE!" Kurumu shouted as she flew up and smashed headlong into the spider woman, grabbing the arachnoid monster around her waist rather than slashing at her.

Keito immediately lost all sense of aim as she struggled to hold on to the ceiling, and quickly bent over so that she could anchor her hands as well. "Damn you! Get off me!"

Tsukune groaned as he pushed himself onto his knees, and then turned his head back toward the yheti. "Hey, what are you doing? I..."

He trailed off and felt the blood drain from his face as he spied a familiar armband that was mostly hidden amongst the excessive hair all over the monster's arms, and was nearly stretched to breaking around the obscenely muscled bicep. "You're an Enforcer too?"

"Jin Kaishuu, senior captain of the Protection Committee Compliance Squad," Jin recited in a low growl as he saluted. "And you would be Aono Tsukune, the alleged 'human,' would you not?"

'Think fast! Most of these guys are dim and really poorly informed!' Tsukune grit his teeth, and suddenly shot to his feet. "Why the hell do you guys think I'm this 'Aono' jerk? I'm Takeda, from class four! I've never even heard of this guy! A human? Don't make me laugh!"

Jin blinked and actually took a step back in surprise as the other boy glared at him. "Wait, class four? I'll uh... er, hold on," the yheti grumbled, taking out a book from behind him and thumbing through it. "Damn it, I know I have a plan for this... just hold on..."

Tsukune was certainly not holding on, and only delayed his escape to look over and see how Kurumu was doing in her struggle against Keito.

Kurumu was doing quite well, and Keito let out a scream of pain and fear as the succubus stabbed her fingernails deep into the Enforcer's midriff. Keito's legs twitched badly in response, and she promptly lost her grip on the ceiling.

"You're going DOWN, ugly!" Kurumu shouted as she let her wings billow out behind her, catching the air and immediately flipping her and Keito around so that the spider woman was on the bottom.

_WHAM!_ The female Enforcer let out an agonized croak as the wooden floor splintered underneath her from the impact, and Kurumu quickly shook off the rough landing before checking to see if Tsukune was okay.

"Tsukune! Are you all right?"

It would have helped him considerably had she not been so thorough as to check verbally.

Tsukune's hackles rose as he heard a book slam shut behind him, and he quickly broke into a full sprint back toward the hall.

"Not so fast," growled a voice behind him as an unnaturally frigid wind brushed by his legs.

The icy cold didn't do much to stop him directly, as he was far enough away that the frost breath was dispersed and too weak to sap the strength from his legs or freeze them. Unfortunately, it was enough to cover the entire floor around him with a layer of frost that completely ruined his footing and sent the human boy sprawling onto his back for the third time in the last five minutes..

"Gah! Damn!" Tsukune struggled forward across the floor, casting a desperate glance behind him at the yheti Enforcer.

"I hate being lied to," grumbled Jin as he stomped forward, his feet easily finding traction on the frost-coated flooring, "misinformation ruins my plans, you see."

"That's funny, seeing how correct information ruined mine," Tsukune said, although he certainly didn't look like he found it funny.

"Tsukune! Hold on!" Kurumu called, spreading her wings again as she vaulted forward to attack the newest opponent.

_Thwap!_ "Gwah!" the succubus pitched forward as a blob of webbing exploded against her back, entangling her wings in sticky threads as she fell forward onto her face.

"Don't... count me out... yet... bimbo..." Keito gasped out as stray webbing strands hung from her lips; endurance was easily her weakest point, and thanks to her target's air headed arm-candy, a quick smash-and-grab had turned into a protracted struggle.

Still, now that Jin was here, the Protection Committee had a solid chance of victory; Keito herself wasn't completely out of the fight yet, and she was fairly certain that whether or not her wings worked, Kurumu had no real chance of winning against the yheti. As long as they could collect Tsukune and get to the Protection Committee offices before any more enemies arrived...

'By Lolth's spiky pink hairbrush, what now?' she cursed as she felt a series of minute tremors through the floor that indicated someone else approaching fast.

Turning her head slightly so that one of her eyes had a good view of the hallway leading back to Volos' office, that eye suddenly widened as she got a good look at who had come to help the enemy.

* * *

"School lunch room revenue is down ten percent..."

"Disposition of the general staff is getting worse..."

"Reports of missing cats are at an all-time high..."

"Test averages have advanced only two percent this last semester..."

"We've had another dozen complaints about Professor Richard over the past week... it's assumed that all plaintiffs were killed for their insolence..."

The meeting hall of the student council was abuzz with mumbled discussion, nearly every class representative and council officer debating or reporting some piece of glum news about the state of the campus. The hall was a massive room that featured a large, donut-shaped table ringed with chairs on the outside for the class representatives and the inside for the officers.

Massive stained glass windows dominated the walls, most of them depicting a significantly twisted version of traditional Catholic imagery. Not that most of the occupants knew the first thing about Catholicism or its common fables, but most were fairly certain that the virgin Mary had not given birth to a Cthuloid child and that Saint Peter was not supposed to be a mummy.

Behind the table was a series of statues depicting, in a properly over dramatic and desperately simplified fashion, the school's mission: specifically, there was a statue of a single suspicious-looking man in a hooded robe lifting up goblins in front of him while humans stood proudly behind him, representing the transition from monsterhood to faux-humanity.

No such grand themes entertained the minds of those currently meeting, however, and the individual representatives continued to chatter away about their own personal observations and the many issues that troubled Youkai Academy.

Only two individuals were silent: one was a rather handsome young man with dark red hair and wire-frame glasses that sat quietly with his hands steepled before his chin. His seat was slightly larger than the others, and was the only chair that directly faced the large double-doors that marked the only entrance to the student council's chambers. It was the only chair that belonged to an officer of the student council, and yet was placed on the outside of the meeting table so that its occupant could better address the room and in particular his officers that were situated in front of him. It was the chair of the student body president.

The other silent individual was on the interior, and seemed to be simply ignoring the chatter around him as he stared at the huge windows with a bored expression on his face. He had dark skin and a face that would have placed him as being of Mediterranean descent, were he human. His hair was ash white, and his uniform and jacket - which was clearly the black long jacket of the Protection Committee - had been altered so that the sleeves were gone, leaving his muscular arms completely bare. The last curious thing about the boy was that he had an iron bracelet ringed with spikes on each wrist, and another such accessory clamped tight around his neck.

"President Kaneshiro, if I may have your attention, please," called out one class representative as he stood up, holding up an arm.

Hokuto Kaneshiro shifted only slightly to shift his gaze to the standing representative. "Go ahead, please," he said, causing the other talking in the hall to quiet immediately.

"Thank you, President," the rep mumbled before clearing his throat. "We've had another string of disappearances around the campus, far in excess of the common conflicts that flare up around campus. I believe it's reached the point that it requires our direct attention."

Hokuto nodded. "So this is not an extension of the other disappearances that we've received complaints about already? You're sure of this?"

Another rep stood up. "More missing students? At this rate we'll barely have enough graduates to warrant a ceremony!"

"Quiet, please," Hokuto said with a gentle firmness, prompting the second rep to quickly sit back down.

"Thank you, President," said the first representative, adjusting his uniform's tie. "As I was saying, these 'disappearances,' or rather, these attacks, are different first because of the scale of them, and second because we know what's causing them; several students have reported either witnessing or escaping an encounter with a gigantic spider stalking the perimeter of the school grounds."

There was a burst of hushed whispers and concerned mumbling around the table.

"Is it a student?" Hokuto asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Doubtful. The attack patterns seem to be random, and it's likely that the victims were taken for food," the rep explained.

"Hmmm... interesting..." Hokuto mumbled, staring up at the ceiling briefly.

Then the student council president turned toward the lone Enforcer at the meeting. "Volos, does the Protection Committee have any insights as to this matter?"

Instantly the Enforcer's eyes flared, and he slammed his hands onto the table as he glared at Hokuto, teeth clenched. "What the hell are you asking me for, nerd? You trying to say we're not doing our jobs? Go die!" he snarled, causing the others around the table to flinch away.

Hokuto sighed gently. "Very well, Volos. Can the Protection Committee set up a task force to deal with this matter, then?"

"Oh, don't worry!" Volos said brightly, his demeanor changing completely as he smiled happily, "I'm sure they'll turn up! Everything's going to be just fine, I know it!"

Hokuto's head shifted slightly to the side. "I see. In that case, are there any developments in the OTHER case of missing students? You know, the ones that are all from Ishigami Hitomi's art class? And were all students that sought private sessions with her? And all disappeared immediately while supposedly at said sessions?"

Volos yawned as he leaned back in his chair, his eyelids drooping. "Nope. There are no leads, so what's the point? It's such a bother, anyway. Why can't the students look after themselves?"

Several representatives groaned and others massaged their heads, quite familiar with the antics of the Protection Committee representative, but frustrated nonetheless.

"At this rate, the students are going to start taking matters into their own hands," the representative that had brought up the issue said, crossing his arms over his chest, "I've already heard talk from some of the stronger ones that they might form gangs to go hunt down the beast that's doing this."

"Oh, that's perfect!" Volos said brightly, shifting forward in his seat. "That's what I like to hear! It's so refreshing to see people power at work, don't you think?"

The rep sighed. "This is a dangerous precedent, Lord Volos. We've seen what happens when students form fighting gangs, and now we have both the anti-schoolers and the fight club causing trouble all over campus. If we have another group banding together to try and protect ordinary students from threats, which is the **Protection Committee's job**, then there's sure to be-"

_CRACK!_ The rep yelped and almost fell backward into his seat as Volos smashed a fist straight down into the table, breaking through the wooden surface and sending chunks of wood scattering across the fine marble floor of the meeting hall.

"Just what are you insinuating, you worthless cockroach?" Volos snapped, his eyes turning black as pitch as he stared at the speaker. "You have something to say about the job we're doing? HUH? Perhaps you'd like to test our methods for dealing with trouble-makers personally? I'll show you if you want."

The representative gulped nervously. "B-But if the situation worsens further, the Protection Committee could lose considerable influence and-"

"Eh, who cares?" Volos said suddenly, slouching in his chair as he sighed. "Is this meeting almost done yet? I'm bored. Is anyone else bored? 'Cause I am SOOOOOOOO bored."

_Crash!_

All conversation and commentary ceased at the sound of glass breaking, and everyone turned toward the east wall to see what was happening.

The lantern from the Enforcer squad got to his feet shakily, brushing off bits of glass and regaining his composure as he became the focus of everyone's attention. "I, uh... have a message for-"

"That was a rather expensive window you just broke through," Hokuto noted blandly, pointing to the image of Jesus Christ extending his finger to Count Dracula and the large, pumpkin-headed hole that now stood between the two figures. "Could you not have used the door?"

"Th-This is an emergency! He's coming!" the lantern said angrily before pointing to his armband. "Anyway, on my authority as a member of the Protection Committee, I'm dissolving this meeting and evacuating this room! This is-YURK!"

The hapless demon let out a yelp as Volos suddenly stalked over to him and then threw an arm across the width of the table, straight at the lantern's throat. Despite the two Enforcers being a good eight feet away, Volos' arm extended to make up the difference, seizing the Netherworld demon.

"Who the hell do you think you are, grunt?" Volos snarled, "coming in here and barking orders like you own the place? You think that little slip of cloth makes you a big shot? HUH?"

The lantern trembled in fear, although he knew he would be saved soon once one of Volos' other personalities took over. "But Lord Volos! Saotome Ranma is on his way! He's here for you!"

Volos dropped him immediately, his arm snapping back to its normal length.

"Someone's here for ME? Really? That's fantastic!" the Greek Enforcer gushed, clasping his hands together. "Does he want to be friends?"

"I have it on good authority that he does NOT want to be friends," the lantern said, shaking his head. "Now let's-"

_WHAM!_

"-Let's stay completely still and hope that Saotome is some kind of monster whose eyesight relies on movement," the lantern squeaked as the double doors leading to the hallway bounced across the floor, having been smashed straight off their hinges.

The student council and class representatives, save Hokuto himself, all leapt to their feet, turning to stare at the second intrusion to their meeting and find out just what was going on.

Hokuto merely frowned as he watched a single pigtailed figure walk over the collapsed doors, his hands in his pockets and a decidedly bemused expression on his face.

Ranma Saotome glanced from one end of the hall to the other, his eyes hard as a thin blue aura flared around his body. "So... which one of you guys is Volos?"

* * *

End Chapter 10

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"Shiroyuki! It's time for round two!"

The voice boomed like a cannon shot, parting the crowd of students away from a single girl who had been slowly shouldering her way through the crowd.

"Hm? Seriously?" Mumbled Mizore around the popsicle in her mouth as she slowly turned around. "I thought we had a truce..."

"The truce was only temporary!" Kana declared, her voice causing everyone else to shrink back from the quite tangible force it contained. "Your stalking days are over!"

Mizore scratched the back of her head as she looked away, trying to avoid eye contact. "You're awfully noisy... for someone who supposedly can't speak..."

"She's right," mumbled a boy behind Mizore as he pointed to Kana, "this is actually the first time I've ever heard Kanade talk, and I'm in three of her classes."

The girl next to him shuddered. "Well, I can see why if she always sounds like some kind of dark overlord..."

"Why do you... want to fight me anyway?" Mizore asked, wringing her hands. "I don't like fighting..."

Kana crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, I wouldn't exactly consider myself a violent person either..."

"Despite pretty much assaulting me every time we've met?" Mizore grumbled

A vein popped up on Kana's head, but the siren simply continued with her explanation as her voice rose explosively again. "HOWEVER! I cannot stand idly by when our ENTIRE FIGHT SCENE from earlier was skipped like that!"

_Crash!_ The students surrounding the two girls immediately collapsed on the spot, and a massive sweatdrop rolled down Mizore's head.

"So... THAT'S what's bothering you?" the snow woman asked, rubbing her head.

"Of course! We, two young, nubile girls, were grappling with each other and shredding each other's clothes off for a good ten minutes over a guy, and that whole battle got passed over for a bunch of heady character development and plot progression!" Kana complained, gripping a hand into a fist. "Doesn't that piss you off? What are we, chopped liver?"

Mizore stared up at the ceiling, idly rolling her popsicle from one side of her mouth to the other. "I think the chapters are long enough, personally... and fights take up so much room..."

"That's not the point!" Kana raged, flailing her arms angrily, "what kind of series is this supposed to be, anyway? We're neglecting the sex and violence that made the core series popular in the first place! And for what? To discuss everyone's feelings about Tsukune being a-"

Mizore crossed the distance between them in an instant, clamping a hand over Kana's mouth. "What are you trying to do, idiot?" the stalker groused, glancing about, "we still don't know if this section qualifies as an extension of the main story, or what... you could get someone in trouble."

Kana slumped slightly as she nodded reluctantly and pulled Mizore's hand away. "Y-You're right... that was a close call. But I still can't accept it! We can't let this all this sappy drama horn in on the pointless violence and fanservice!"

"Well then, shall I burn your clothes off?"

Mizore and Kana both turned their heads in surprise to see Saffron glaring darkly at them from down the hall, both his hands ablaze with trembling fireballs.

"Although I doubt that whatever's left of you will be very appealing to the eye, so I doubt readers would find it very enjoyable," Saffron admitted, "nonetheless, **I** will enjoy it VERY much."

Without waiting for the girls to respond, he slammed his hands together, sending the bolt of flame hurtling toward the pair.

"TAKE COVER!" Kana boomed, her voice forming a concussive blast that flung her and Mizore away from each other just in time for the fireball to sail between them.

The other students followed her advice well, most of them being used to sudden bombardment by magical projectiles. As such, the orb of flame continued traveling down the hall until it finally struck an individual that hadn't been involved at all in the altercation.

_Bwoom!_ Professor Richard staggered forward slightly as the fireball struck him in the back, immediately catching his robes aflame and scorching the surrounding walls.

The warlock straightened, and then calmly stared at his arms as small embers burned along the thick bracers over his forearms.

And then, with a brief flash of blue light that covered his entire body, the flames were instantly doused, and the charred floor at Richard's feet was covered in a thin layer of frost as the warlock turned around to face the direction the fireball had come from.

"TAKE MORE COVER!" Kana screamed, spreading her wings behind her and then folding them forward so that she could hide behind them. Mizore grabbed a nearby water fountain and turned the knob before she started turning the resulting stream of water into an ice barricade as quickly as she could. Most of the other students likewise started activating natural defenses or simply pulling down lockers to hide behind as Richard strode down the length of the hall, his yellow eyes narrowed into slits.

Saffron was frozen into place, his hands shaking as he realized what he had just done. Nonetheless, the Phoenix king shored up his pride and grit his teeth as the undead magus stepped up in front of him, refusing to back down.

"Something wrong, Professor?" Saffron asked mockingly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I hope you don't expect an apology for a little burn like that, given how you've treated me."

Richard said nothing at first, glancing at each of Saffron's hands and noting the wisps of smoke. "Really? And that was with both hands?"

"Hm?" Saffron raised an eyebrow at the unexpected question. "What about it?"

"That blast radius was PATHETIC. You may as well fling firecrackers at people if that's the best you can manage on your own," Richard said disapprovingly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, I... uh..." Saffron trailed off, completely lost, "what?"

"You're coming with me," Richard said suddenly, grabbing the Phoenix king by the wrist and then turning around, "and you're not leaving my side until you can double that area of effect and actually get some decent ongoing damage."

"What? Why should I? HEY!" Saffron tried to tug his arm away as the warlock started dragging him down the hall, but found that the professor of physical science was actually quite strong. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"No, but after spending the weekend with me, you'll WISH you were dead," Richard noted as they got to a doorway and he pulled it open. "And who knows? If you make good progress, we might work on that, too."

Saffron's face paled considerably as he started kicking and tugging violently, trying to get free as Richard pulled him into the room. "N-No! Wait! Stop! Somebody, help me! NOOOOOOO!"

Mizore sighed in relief as the pair vanished. "Well... that could have gone worse..."

"We're not going to get our fight scene, are we?" Kana groaned weakly.

"Oh, get over it..." 


	12. Regime Change

"Hello everyone! It's time to once again place our best guess as to Ranma Saotome's species!" Shizuka Nekonome said brightly.

"Today we have an officer of the Protection Committee here to weigh in!" The homeroom teacher explained as she gestured to the side.

Keito sat in the interview chair with her legs crossed delicately and a scowl on her face.

"Miss Keito! Sorry to interrupt your pursuit of miscreants and criminals, but what do you think his-"

"He's NOT a spider!" Keito shouted hotly.

Shizuka blinked. "Pardon?"

"People have been getting the wrong idea, just because he has good reflexes and gets along with lesser spiders," Keito growled, her voice thick with contempt, "but I know better! Saotome lacks the dignity and composure of a spider monster, and smells all wrong, too! I'm sick of people comparing him to us!"

Before Shizuka could respond, the Enforcer suddenly stood up and pointed at the reader. "And to those of you that thought I'd fall for that egotistic bastard just because he's nice to tarantulas - you know who you are - get a clue! I wouldn't touch that jerk with a standard issue ten foot pole!"

"Please refrain from talking to the audience," Shizuka said sharply, her voice suddenly firm, "we're pushing the fourth wall breaks in this chapter as it is. Anyway, it's fine that you have a guess for what he's NOT, but do you have any information on what Saotome actually is?"

Keito snorted as she crossed her arms under her breasts. "If I have to make a guess, I'll say he's a wretched, monstrous fly."

Shizuka sighed as she determined that her guest wasn't going to take the question seriously after all. "Do you have any evidence?"

"No, but that's exactly what that idiot is going to feel like the next time I get my webs on him!" Keito seethed. "I'll dissolve his organs to goo and slurp them up like rancid soup!"

"So says the Enforcer that got tossed around by Moka. The NORMAL Moka, yet," Shizuka mumbled.

"What was that?" Keito growled.

"I said thank you very much. We're done here," the nekomata lied. "And now, we present the dramatic conclusion to the story arc! Enjoy!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

This chapter prompted a long and delicately heated debate about the impressions of murder in this story, and how my characters should perceive such things. I learned a lot from the discussion, most of all that most things I worry about aren't important enough for anyone to notice until I ask a bunch of netizens with nothing better to do to carefully scrutinize a single aspect of the story.

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 11  
Regime Change

* * *

Hokuto steepled his fingers as he leaned back in his chair, an unreadable expression on his face.

On one side of the student council's meeting hall, a rather irate-looking Ranma Saotome waited patiently with his hands in his pockets.

On the other, Volos, the security secretary of the student council, glared at the pigtailed boy while the pumpkin-headed lantern - whose name escaped Hokuto completely - quailed in terror at Saotome's entrance.

Everyone else in the room seemed to be stunned silent at the unprecedented disturbance. Youkai Academy was a place where violence and recklessness thrived, it was true, but having someone bust down the doors to the student council chambers and declare their target was totally unheard of.

As Hokuto continued his silent musing, the vice president of the council - a skinny, withered-looking boy name Matano - finally shook himself free of his shock.

"And just who do you think you are?" Matano demanded, immediately earning Ranma's undivided attention.

"I'm Saotome Ranma, freshman class 1-A," Ranma said immediately. "You Volos?"

"N-No!" The vice president stuttered, taken off-guard a bit by Ranma's simple and calm response. "What do you think you're doing, breaking into this room like that?"

"I'm here for Volos," Ranma answered simply, his hands still in his pockets, "sorry about causin' a mess, but it's really important, so I'll just kick his ass so you can get on with disbanding the Enforcers forever."

This statement reduced Matano back to his previous speechless state, and caused Hokuto to raise an eyebrow.

"Disbanding the Protection Committee? I don't recall a motion like that at all," the student council president mumbled as he leaned forward over the table. "Would you care to go into detail, Mister Saotome?"

Ranma sighed. "Look, that guy's Volos, right?" He asked, pointing to the sleeveless Enforcer. "I mean, it seems obvious enough, but I want to make sure. I'd be really embarrassed if I beat up the wrong guy. Plus the whole plan could fall apart, for all I know."

The Enforcer in question suddenly whirled around, his eyes black as pitch as he snarled. "Yeah, I'm Volos, you uppity rodent! You wanna mess with me? I'll gut you like a trout!"

Ranma seemed slightly surprised, if not particularly intimidated, by the sudden burst of hostility. "Yeah, I do wanna mess with you," he confirmed, shifting slightly to his side and into a fighting stance. "You wanna fight here or outside? I don't care, but some of the furniture in here looks too pretty to have your head lodged in it."

As the other members meeting in the chamber started to slowly inch away from the conflict, Volos suddenly laughed; to Ranma's confusion, it was not a derisive or sarcastic laugh, but an honest, fun-loving belly laugh.

"HA! That was great! You're witty!" Volos complimented the pigtailed boy, a happy grin stretched across his face. "Wanna be friends?"

Now it was Ranma's turn to be struck speechless. "Er... What happened to gutting me?"

"That would be SUCH a hassle," Volos moaned, his shoulders slumping. "I don't want to."

"Hey, is there something wrong with him?" Ranma asked Hokuto, pointing at the Enforcer. "What's with the mood swings?"

"Those are just his other personalities," the redhead explained with a shrug. "It takes a great deal of getting used to."

Ranma blinked. "Oh, he has that multiple personality disorder thing? Like on TV?"

"Not at all," Hokuto said, sitting back in his chair again.

"But you just said-"

"HEY! Punk! You wanna throw down, you talk to ME, not the geek!" Volos shouted suddenly, looking enraged again.

"Okay, fine," Ranma mumbled, "if you could just keep one of the angrier voices in your head in charge, we can get on with this."

"N-No fighting in the s-student council hall!" Matano suddenly shouted. "This is a p-place for debate and consensus, not an arena pit!"

Volos yawned as his apathetic personality asserted itself. "Guy's got a point. Let's just call it off for now, okay?"

"No way! Like I said, this is important!" Ranma declared. "Bring back the angry shouty one!"

"Perhaps you have something you'd like to say first, Mister Saotome?" Hokuto asked suddenly. "Forgive me for being presumptuous, but it doesn't seem like you broke in here to simply cause havoc or settle a personal grudge. What is it you want?"

Ranma hesitated for a moment, and then scrubbed his head with his hand. "Well, okay. It's like this..."

Suddenly he pointed to Volos. "You Protection Committee jerks have been causing all kinds of trouble for everyone! You guys have been bugging me and Tsukune for the dumbest reasons, but you never do anything about the real problems on campus! You punish and extort the weak, but look the other way when it comes to anyone strong! You don't know the first thing about justice, you don't follow the rules, and you don't make this school any safer!"

Ranma took a deep breath as he stopped to think of what else to say. He really wished he could go on a long, indignant rant like Tsukune or even Ryoga, but he was more the snappy comeback type.

Several of the others in the chamber started whispering to each other. The charges were true, of course, and everyone knew it, but none of them could fathom what Ranma imagined he could change with his current course of action.

"Those are some very serious accusations," Hokuto said calmly. "Volos, do you have a response in the Protection Committee's defense?"

"Yeah: go jump in a well and die," Volos said, a fierce grin crossing his features, "we don't have to answer to this punk. The Protection Committee does what it does to protect the school! If you don't like it, tough!"

"That's not a very compelling statement," Hokuto deadpanned.

"Sorry. I get nervous sometimes when I'm on the spot," Volos said bashfully as he rubbed the back of his head.

The student council president turned back toward Ranma. "And Saotome, what of you? How do you intend to fix the problem?"

Ranma crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, the first step is to kick HIS ass. After that... I'm not really sure. I'd have to ask Tsukune."

Hokuto filed the name away for later as he continued. "While I admire your desire to reform our school's... flawed security council, has it occurred to you that it might not be best to answer their violence with more violence?"

"No, that didn't occur to me at all!" Ranma said firmly. "And really, even if you say that, I don't really know what else I'd do..."

After thinking for a few seconds, Ranma glanced toward Hokuto. "I don't suppose student council posts are given to those who win some sort of obscure, over-the-top martial arts contest, are they?"

"No, they're not," Hokuto deadpanned again.

"Well, I tried," Ranma said, shrugging, "violence it is."

"Aw, man... seriously, this is such a pain," Volos grumbled, his shoulders slumping.

As Ranma started to advance, Hokuto suddenly threw a hand up. "Saotome, hold. I cannot allow this."

Ranma blinked in surprise as he halted. "What? What do you mean?"

"I understand your stance on the Protection Committee, and I'd even go so far as to say that I agree with your intentions. However, I still cannot allow this."

The student council president stood up, and then gestured to the table. "Like Matano said, this is a place for debate and consensus, not bloodshed and domination. Even if your intentions are pure, do you think I could condone such actions?"

Ranma flushed slightly, suddenly feeling self-conscious as everyone in the room stared at him disapprovingly. "Well, I thought this was how you monsters usually did things, so-"

"Yes, unfortunately it is," Hokuto lamented as he pushed up his glasses. "And that is precisely what we at Youkai Academy are attempting to PREVENT. How could I show my face to the students who elected me to this position if I allowed such conduct? Meeting violence with greater violence... Forcing change with martial power... Is that not what we are trying to leave behind? Must we take a step back in order to push forward?"

Ranma stood in place, completely stunned. He didn't know what to say to any of that. He was pretty sure that there was nothing specifically wrong with beating up Volos, and Tsukune's plan was entirely noble, but... Hokuto had a point too, and Ranma had no counter-argument.

"So that is why I cannot condone your course of action," Hokuto finished, "and should you continue your assault against our student council co-hort, I can guarantee that I will not listen to whatever appeal you have in regards to the Protection Committee."

As Ranma started to sweat silently, Volos laughed.

"Ha ha ha! That'll show ya, idiot! Don't think you can screw with me! Though you should thank your useless gods that you won't be fighting me after all!" Ranma grit his teeth at the taunting, but still said nothing, searching fruitlessly for some rebuttal to Hokuto's speech.

The student council president shrugged. "Actually, it seems he'll get his chance. Volos, you may attack."

Ranma's head snapped up at the same time Volos' chuckling trailed off.

"W-Wait, what? Why?" asked the Enforcer, his voice quaking slightly.

Hokuto raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'why'? A miscreant has just broken into our meeting chamber forcibly with the express intent to harm a member of the council," he explained, gesturing to Ranma, "naturally, as the security secretary, it falls to you to dispose of such disruptive people."

"Oh, come on! We can all get along, can't we?" Volos asked nervously as his cheerful personality asserted itself.

Hokuto pushed up his glasses again. "Of course, given his clearly violent intent, you'll need to use force. Possibly a great deal of force, seeing as I'll expect he'll defend himself." Then he shrugged. "If you're rendered unconscious or dead through the course of fulfilling your duties, we may have to make decisions in the future without the input of the Protection Committee. Regrettable, but I'm sure you won't lose, so it's fine."

"HEY! What the hell is this?" Volos howled, backing up as he clenched his teeth. "How is this any different than just letting him attack me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hokuto assured the Enforcer with a shrug. "Those members of the student council and others who are not involved, it's advised you evacuate the hall immediately. Good luck, Volos!"

"Well, I have NO clue what's going on, but I guess the short of it is that I'm gonna beat you anyway," Ranma said, scratching the back of his head as he glanced at Hokuto irritably.

"Aw man, this is such a drag," Volos whined as he jumped up onto the table. Class reps and council members were already scattering away from the table and in most cases scrambling for the door. "Why do I have to fight in the middle of a meeting? I hate this!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Hey, could you try and keep the angry one in charge while we're fighting? It really helps get the mood right."

Instead of responding with words, Volos wound up a punch and then threw a haymaker in Ranma's direction. Despite being halfway across the room.

Of course, Ranma was expecting some sort of trick or power to come from Volos, and as such was hardly surprised at all as the Enforcer's arm lengthened considerably as it rocketed toward him.

He was slightly more surprised when the knuckles suddenly split open and bit him.

"Hey! Ow!" Ranma complained as he tried to dodge out of the way, only for a set of needle-like teeth to follow him and sink into his forearm.

Ranma promptly smashed the mysterious appendage with his free hand, and was rewarded with an angry hiss as the jaws released him and pulled back.

The (former) hand didn't snap back to Volos like rubber, but rather remained extended as it rose up and continued to deform and swell. Fingers melted together and flesh hardened into reptilian scales, and within moments an eye appeared on each side of what had obviously become some sort of serpent's head. The forearm and bicep lost their definition as they expanded and became a long, serpentine neck about as thick as a lamp post, and Volos' skin darkened even further to become a grainy, charcoal black.

"Don't make light of me, worthless troublemaker!" Snapped the head that had attacked him, a forked tongue sliding out between its lips.

"Do we really have to do this? This is such a bother," groaned Volos' head as it started to shift to become like his transformed arm.

"Oh, come on, it'll be fun! Just think of it as an opportunity to help out the council!" Another voice insisted as the other hand split into a mouth and started changing as well. "Ooh! Maybe we'll get a promotion!"

Ranma frowned as he watched the Enforcer's torso bulge outward as it started to grow beyond the confines of its uniform. A second later, a thick, dark tail erupted from Volos' backside, and as the tatters of his uniform littered the floor all three heads rose to stare down at their opponent.

"Oh! Right! The fire chick did say you were a hydra, didn't she?" Ranma said suddenly.

* * *

"Hello! How is everyone today?" Shizuka Nekonome asked as she waved brightly while standing in front of the blackboard. "We're almost wrapping up this story arc, so now we're covering the last of the heavy-weights! This lesson is about hydras!"

Shizuka gestured to the blackboard, which featured a chalk sketch of a three-headed serpent attacking an ancient longboat.

"Hydras originate from Greece, where they featured in ancient folklore as a result of their occasional attacks on trading and fishing vessels! Hydras are aggressive aquatic serpents that make their nests in coastal caves. They are very rare on account of being trounced by the numerous human heroes of that region, and also because various evil overlords and beastmasters are always capturing their young to be used as guardians for some dungeon or something. The forces of Evil rarely have decent breeding programs for their hapless slave-beasts."

Shizuka turned to the other end of the blackboard, where there was a chalk drawing of a hydra with a different thought bubble extending from each of its five heads. One had a chicken leg, another a heart, another one featured a game controller, yet another had a series of Z's, and the last head had a complex drawing that seemed to represent a plot involving the murder of all the other heads.

"In modern times, the hydra has had trouble adjusting due to its unique biological quirk of having several completely functional brains exercising equal control over its body. In the past, it was easy for the brains to unify their thought processes, because the typical hydra only had one: kill every living thing and eat it. In today's society where information is widespread and constantly catering to one's animal urges is unnecessary, this has led to an unfortunate phenomenon in which different heads will develop distinctly different personalities, with wants and needs different from, if not directly opposed to, those of the other heads! This can lead to the appearance of having multiple personalities when trying to pass as a human, and can even lead to personal infighting in severe cases."

Shizuka tapped her pointer against the various heads. "Given that the more heads a modern hydra has, the harder it is to focus and accomplish anything, young hydras have it easiest; a baby hydra has only one head. They grow additional heads as they grow older, although this phenomenon takes longer to occur after each growth. It's typical for hydras to effectively stop growing new heads after the seventh one, though only very, very old ones get that many, and it's rumored that ones with nine and even ten heads exist! Imagine how hard it would be to decide on a movie to rent!"

Shizuka put away her pointer as she continued to the last part of the lesson. "In combat, hydras mostly rely on their bulk and numerous vectors of attack, as they find agile movements all but impossible and can't easily compose a plan of attack unless it has time to stop and debate a strategy with all of its other brains. Due to their body structure they're quite clumsy, and despite being an aquatic serpent, they're not much more agile in the water. They do have the ability to spit water with rock-pulverizing force though, and they can regenerate wounds fairly quickly! A hydra can easily exhaust cautious opponents with its considerable stamina and random attack patterns, while more aggressive enemies will find that it's hard to keep a hydra down when you have several equally important targets that keep shrugging off your blows. Once again, the solution to regeneration is fire, so keep your spellcasters or elemental creatures handy!"

Shizuka smiled brightly for several seconds before her expression turned serious. "Why is it that the hellhound kid is never around in the fights that would be really easy for him?"

* * *

"HRAAARGH!" A tremendous roar rocked the hall as two heads charged forward, snapping their jaws viciously.

Ranma leapt over them, landing nimbly along one of its necks and dashing for the central head.

"So this is a hydra, eh? I was wondering what that was," Ranma said casually as he spun a kick into the middle head's jaw, sending it reeling backward.

He flipped over the beast as the other two heads doubled back around to bite at him, landing at the tip of the hydra's tail.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" The middle head complained. "I wasn't doing anything!"

"Well, then hurry up and start fighting, Number Two! I don't want to lose my council seat to this pest!" growled the right-hand head.

"One is right, Two!" crowed the left-most head, swaying back and forth as it licked its lips. "C'mon! Fighting is fun!"

"Leave me outta this!" Number Two whined. "That kick really hurt! And I'm tired!"

Ranma groaned. "Hey, are you seriously gonna argue like this the whole time?"

"Yeah you guys!" Chirped the left head, presumably Head Number Three, "let's unite and defeat him with the power of friendship!"

"We're not friends, dumbass! We're the same person!" growled Number One.

"I don't even see why we need to do this. Let's just give up. Being in the student council is too hard anyway," moaned Head Number Two.

Ranma glanced incredulously at Hokuto, who was still seated in his chair at the far side of the hall. He shrugged in response.

"Would you get it together?" snapped One. "We're going to lose!"

"Don't worry! Things will work out!" piped up Three.

"I'm leaning toward Three's non-plan," Two admitted, "it gives me room to sit this out."

"You can't sit this out, fool! We're in a fight!" One growled in frustration.

Before the middle head could come up with another whiny protest, a chair suddenly smashed into the side of its head, sending it reeling.

"Ow! Hey! What are you doing?" Two demanded. "I said I didn't wanna fight!"

"Too bad!" Ranma shouted as he hefted another chair, "I'm not leaving here until ONE of us is a pile of broken bones on the floor, so get it together and take this seriously!"

"B-But-"

Ranma interrupted immediately. "No 'buts'! Hurry up and fight me, or you're the first head I'm cracking!"

"Okay! Okay! Fine! I'll do it!" Head Two replied in a panic.

Head One stared at the scene, completely confused. "Wait, what just happened?"

"Yay! We are united once more! Let's go guys!" Cheered Three.

Before the angriest head could respond, the hydra suddenly lurched forward toward Ranma, smashing into the massive committee table with a clawed foot and breaking that part to splinters.

Ranma jumped backward as heads Two and Three took turns snapping at him, and the martial artist rewarded each attempt with a quick jab to the nose that caused them to flinch back.

"That's more like it!" Ranma crowed as he hopped up onto the robed statue in the back of the hall, getting a better vantage point. "All that whining was really getting on my nerves. But from here out it's for real!"

Head One hissed noisily as it suddenly surged up, its pitch-black eyes glowering at the pigtailed boy. "Then get ready to meet your maker, miscreant! DIE!"

* * *

Keito would have grit her teeth had they not morphed into a pair of jointed, spike-like fangs. "So you've decided to let your prey escape after all, hm? You're a poor hunter."

Ranma smirked as he strolled down the hall toward where Moka was still stuck to the floor with webbing. "Eh, whatever. I can beat down your little puppet any time."

Tsukune blinked in surprise at seeing his roommate appear. "Ranma? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be finding Volos!" Thankfully, Jin was as perturbed as anyone to see the martial artist, and the yheti had stopped fighting Kurumu immediately.

"Don't worry! Yukari's taking care of that!" Ranma said brightly as he reached Moka and swiped a hand at a fold of webbing. The threads were severed instantly, and Moka promptly tugged her arm free.

"Uh... Yukari, you say?" Kurumu mumbled uncertainly. "Do you think she can... you know... win?"

"Don't underestimate her!" Ranma declared as he swiped his hand again at the webbing, freeing Moka's other leg, "she's a genius, even if she isn't QUITE as magnificent as I, the great and powerful Ranma Saotome! Ha ha ha ha!" Ranma crossed his arms over his chest as he laughed, and those assembled could now plainly see that the hand that had been cutting Moka free was holding some sort of large tarot card.

Kurumu promptly crept over to Tsukune. "That's not Ranma, is it?" She whispered into his ear.

"No. No, it's not," Tsukune whispered back, furiously trying to think of a plan to make use of this ruse that wouldn't end with "Ranma" - who he was guessing was Yukari - in enemy hands.

Keito snorted. "Well, you're plenty confident, but you're no genius yourself if you wasted your chance for an ambush to set the weakest member of your little team free!" Pushing her injured body to its limit, the spider woman leapt onto the wall on the side of the hall, grabbing onto the surface with her legs while she worked more webbing into her mouth.

"Hey! She is NOT the weakest!" "Ranma" replied before Moka could offer any defense of her own. "Tsukune is way weaker than her!"

Keito ignored him. "Jin! Tell me you have a plan for this situation!"

The yheti snorted. "Naturally."

"Then let's see it! It's time to pull out all the stops!" Keito cried.

Jin's thick lips curled into a smile. "Right away. I'll show you REAL genius," he said haughtily as he stomped past Tsukune and Kurumu toward "Ranma".

Tsukune was mildly surprised that Jin's plan didn't involve taking him hostage, which was the first thing he thought of, but didn't waste any time in turning to Kurumu.

"Listen," he whispered harshly, "the moment he attacks, charge into his back! That should give Yukari an opening if she has another trick up her sleeve, or at least let her escape. After that you and Moka should take off down the hall, and take this 'Ranma' with you. I'll run in the opposite direction and loop back around to the student council room."

Kurumu nodded, silently spreading her wings in preparation to attack.

"Ranma" waited patiently as Jin stomped up to him, his expression supremely confident even as the massive, hairy snow beast reached easy striking distance. It didn't waver one bit as the yheti reached over its own shoulder to draw the huge baton on his back, and it didn't crack even when Jin laid the baton at Ranma's feet and then suddenly collapsed onto his knees and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry. Please forgive me," Jin said bluntly, his nose almost touching the floor.

Tsukune winced as Kurumu, who had already begun her charge, facefaulted mid-sprint, causing her to crash and roll painfully across the floor.

"Ranma" merely laughed. "Ho ho ho ho! I don't know about 'genius', but you're definitely smarter than my other opponents! Except Yukari and the lovely Moka, of course!"

"Er, Ranma, please don't classify me as an enemy," Moka said while a sweatdrop rolled down her head.

_'I like this one much better than the real one. Think we can get a trade-in?'_ Inner Moka interjected.

_Thwip!_ "Ranma's" head jerked back as a ball of webbing flew at, then through, his head, and he staggered in surprise.

"Now! Attack him now!" Keito demanded. "I'll try to immo... What?"

The source of her confusion was less that her projectile had seemed to pass through Ranma face (she'd heard he was absurdly fast) and more that Jin had bolted to his feet only to walk past Ranma and pick something up off the floor.

Jin clicked his tongue as he held up the wide-rimmed black witch's hat, and immediately started tearing off the webbing that had wrapped around it. "Now look what you did, Keito! You got his hat all dirty!"

"Who cares about his hat!" Keito snapped angrily before her many eyes blinked. "Wait... Since when did he have a hat?"

Jin too suddenly looked uncertain as he stared at the accessory.

"H-Hat? What do you mean, hat? I don't wear a hat!" "Ranma" said, his voice cracking slightly. "That obviously belongs to someone else! And it might be very important to that someone else, so I'd better take it right away!"

Jin stared at "Ranma", and then glanced down at the hat in his hand.

Then the yheti placed the hat on "Ranma's" head, only to see it sink into the pigtailed boy's body and fade away.

"I suppose it would be pushing it if I said that the hat was the illusion and I'm totally real, huh?" "Ranma" asked.

Jin's response was to raise a massive fist in the air.

_Whump!_ Yukari's illusion broke completely as Kurumu suddenly tackled her from the side, pushing the young witch out of the way before she vaulted into the air just above another shot of webbing.

"Moka, move it!" Kurumu shouted as she flapped her wings to try and stabilize herself in the extremely narrow airspace. "We need to get out of here!"

The vampiress didn't argue, and took off after the succubus at a sprint.

Jin growled and was starting to give chase when Keito shouted in surprise. "The human! Where did he go?"

"Hah? What now?" the yheti grumbled, halting to recover his baton.

"Aono left while you were carrying out your so-called 'plan,' idiot!" Keito seethed. "Hurry! We have to catch him!"

Jin hesitated. "Do you know where he went?"

"Probably back around to the student council offices!"

"Where Saotome is?" Jin hypothesized.

"That would be a good bet, yes," Keito said as she crawled back onto the floor.

Jin immediately turned to pursue the girls that had escaped. "I'll take the small fries. YOU deal with Saotome."

Keito's many eyes narrowed. "Why are you so terrified of him, anyway? Your cowardice is usually more... tempered."

Jin spun the massive baton within one of his huge, hairy hands as he walked after Kurumu, Yukari, and Moka. "I make it a rule not to fight people who have beaten people who have already beaten me. And the last time Chopper Rikishi thought wrestling a yheti might be fun, Miss Madaraki had to get the janitor's help in order to find all my teeth." He rubbed his arm uncomfortably. "Besides, I got stung in the arm earlier and it's still a bit numb. I doubt I could even lose with dignity."

"So if you can't keep your dignity either way, then you might as well keep your jaw in one piece, eh?" Keito asked, snorting.

"That was the plan, yes," Jin admitted, "my new plan involves turning all of the less dangerous miscreants into wallpaper. I'll let you know how it turns out."

Keito snarled wordlessly as she limped off in the opposite direction.

Her own plan had already been shot to hell and back, thanks to Aono's friends, and she had serious doubts as to whether even Volos could overcome Ranma Saotome on his own. If Volos was brought down, she had no idea what the student council would do, and that alone was cause for considerable concern.

'If the Protection Committee really does end up losing its mandate, Jin's plan might look rather sensible,' she thought bitterly. 'As it is, the only one who could dig us out of our present hole is...'

Keito was jolted from her thoughts as she felt the the vibrations from two people down the hall, approaching at an entirely unhurried pace.

She considered changing back to human form or hiding, but relented. She didn't want to deal with the strain of a transformation right now, and whoever it was would have no authority to reprimand her.

As the figures walked into view, however, that assumption was savagely crushed.

"L-Lord Kuyo!" Keito squawked awkwardly. "I, uh, I'm surprised to see you here!"

"Yes, I imagine you are," Kuyo mused as he stopped and looked over his subordinate. "Working diligently even on the weekend, I see? Did Saotome do that to you?"

Keito scowled as she lowered her head. "No, Lord Kuyo. It was Aono's other friends..." Then she snapped her head up again. "But that's not important! Aono escaped this way, and I believe that Saotome is already facing off against Volos in the student council hall!"

Kuyo raised an eyebrow. "Well, we can't have that, now can we?" He gestured to the silent Enforcer standing behind him. "Come with us, Keito. It's time we put an end to this misguided rebellion, once and for all."

With a smirk on his face, he held his hand palm-up before his chest, and a small ember spontaneously appeared at his fingertips.

"The human and his lackey shall become ashes before me. For this too is justice."

* * *

_Snap! Crash!_

Ranma bolted to the side as head three snapped at him, and then leapt over the hydra's tail as its body swung around to bring the other heads to bear.

Ranma hopped backward to avoid head one, which swung at him like a flail, and then leapt up onto the wall out of Volos' range.

"Ha! Is this all you've got? Fighting the orochi was way harder than this!" Ranma taunted as he looked around the room for any improvised weapons he could use.

Head Three blinked in surprise. "You know Uncle Orochi? How is he nowadays?"

"Not too good since I kicked his scaly ass," Ranma responded. Of course he hadn't really DEFEATED the Orochi as such, since they had just been there to get that stupid moss from it, but Volos didn't need to know that.

"You're kidding! You beat Uncle?" Head Two whined. "Guys, there's no way we can beat him! Let's just give up!"

"No! No giving up!" Snapped Head One. "Keep fighting!"

Head Three darted forward as the entire body approached, and Ranma bounced off its nose and into the air.

The moment he was airborne the other two heads whipped around to intercept him, and Ranma rebounded off of head two's chin before Head One tried to snap him up from below.

"Ha!" Ranma's hands caught the top of Head One's jaw as his feet caught the bottom, holding the hydra's mouth open.

'Whoops! Gotta leave before the other heads-'_ WHOOMPH!_

Ranma was caught completely off-guard as a blast of water shot from the back of the hydra's throat and slammed into him like a speeding car, throwing him across the room and into the wall with enough force to leave a deep bed of cracks behind.

"YEAH! That's how you do it!" Head One cheered before he suddenly started coughing harshly.

"Hey, are you all right?" Head Three asked. "You need to be careful! Since we don't have a ready source of water available, we can't use our water spray at full power! And probably not more than once!"

"Don't TELL him that, idiot!" Head One snapped, its voice straining against its suddenly parched throat.

"Tell her that," Head Two corrected.

"Huh?"

"Tell her that," Head Two repeated as it stared across the room. "I guess Saotome's a girl now."

Ranma, for her part, tenderly pulled herself out of the indentation she had left in the wall as she revised her opponent's threat level up a notch.

"Okay... Yeah... That hurt... Good job..." The redhead mumbled as she checked her ribs.

_Whomp!_ She grunted as Volos' tail smashed her aside, sending the martial artist spinning through the air toward one of the massive, stained-glass windows that decorated the hall.

Before she could hit it, however, Ranma lashed out a hand toward her opponent.

"Gwah! Mhph!" Head Two cried out through clenched teeth as its jaws were suddenly wrapped in a whip of steel-like threads, and it pitched forward as Ranma pulled herself back toward the hydra and away from the window with rapidly increasing velocity.

_WHAM!_ Ranma smirked as she drove a savage kick into Head Three, sending tremors throughout the hydra's body as Head Three's jaw buckled and cracked from the force.

She tugged on the cord of webbing that she had borrowed earlier from Keito's "leftovers", and pulled herself back from the collapsing third head, swinging underneath Head Two's chin.

"Ah ha! So you're a spider creature!" Head One snarled as it curled its neck around and tried to bite at the pigtailed girl.

Ranma yanked herself up sharply, avoiding the bite and grabbing on to the webbing wrapped around Head Two's mouth.

"I'm not!" Ranma protested as she quickly hauled herself up on top of the hydra's second head. "I just borrowed the webbing from your guys' spider creature!"

"Oh, whatever!" Head One growled as it glared up at the redhead. Then it redirected its glare at Head Two. "And you! Don't let her just crawl all over you! Do something!"

"Mmrgh fn whhmn?" Head Two asked, looking helpless as Ranma stood on the top of its skull.

As Head One's patience broke, it suddenly clamped its teeth around Head Two's throat, and then swung it around toward the wall.

"Whoa! Hey!" Ranma barely managed to leap off her perch before Head Two was slammed into the wall, and even had to abandon her webbing lash as she jumped into the air.

Grabbing on to one of the massive, antique chandeliers that hung over the meeting hall, Ranma hoisted herself up onto the body of the furnishing before glancing down.

Head Two swayed painfully as Head One released it contemptuously, though its jaw was still bound so it thankfully couldn't complain anymore.

_Clank!_ The sound of a chain suddenly breaking failed to grab Head Two's attention as it worked against the webbing holding its jaw closed.

_CRACK!_ Across the room, Hokuto couldn't help but wince as Head Two took the full brunt of the falling chandalier, its neck snapping down as nearly two hundred pounds of brass with another hundred pounds of Ranma drove its skull into the floor.

Head One made a low growl in the back of his throat as Ranma hopped out of the ring of splinters and debris.

"Finally. Just you and me," Ranma said as she tugged on her shirt and started to wring it out. It was still wet from the water blast earlier, and she hadn't had time to dry it out at all in-between taking down two-thirds of Volos.

"You're going to regret leaving me for last," Head One snarled, stepping forward as it rose high above the cursed martial artist. The other heads rose slightly as well, just enough that their heads were bowed just a few feet above the floor, rather than lying completely limp and being dragged along underfoot.

Ranma snorted, planting her hands on her hips. "I doubt it. Those two were annoying."

"Hmph, you got that right," Head One agreed as the hydra stomped forward, looking as if it intended to trample Ranma outright.

However, Volos hesitated after a moment, and Head One raised an eyebrow. "Wait, does that mean... You don't think I'm annoying?"

Ranma shrugged. "Not really. I mean, you have just about the right attitude for someone barging into your territory and trying to beat you to a pulp in order to put you out of a job. You've got some rage issues, sure, but I've seen worse." She scuffed her hair briefly as she slipped into a fighting stance. "But the important thing is that you're ready to do your job and fight me! I respect that, ya know?"

Ranma was somewhat nonplussed when, instead of charging forward as head one had done before, the hydra seemed to be stunned in place for some reason.

"I... I can't believe..." Volos mumbled as he took a few steps back, "you respect... someone like me?"

"Huh? Well, sure, I guess," Ranma mumbled.

"Nobody's ever said they RESPECTED me before... Unless it was out of fear..."

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. "Hey, wait-"

"This reminds me of when I first arrived at Youkai Academy..."

"Stop that! Don't-"

* * *

Volos took a deep breath of the musty, dank air as he stepped off the bus, a warm smile creeping over his features.

"I'm so EXCITED!" The hydra gushed as he clutched his bag to his chest. "A new school, full of new experiences and people! I hope I make lots of friends!"

Suddenly his shoulders slumped. "Oh, whatever. I just hope the classes aren't too hard. Being in human form all the time is such-"

"No, no, NO! Cut it out! We're not doing this!" Ranma shouted.

* * *

Volos blinked as he came out of his flashback. "What?"

"No! No way!" Ranma said firmly, looking annoyed. "We are NOT going to sit here while you flash back and relate your whole damn life story to try and make yourself seem sympathetic and important two minutes before I beat you into the ground! I have other things to do today! It's not happening!"

Volos looked taken aback. "Well... Can I at least cover my recruitment into the Protection Committee? It's not that long."

Ranma crossed her arms under her breasts. "Could it be summed up to something like: 'Lord Kuyo told me he needed my strength, and I was really happy someone even cared THAT much'?"

A vein popped up on Head One as his eyes narrowed. "Fine, jerk! You want your damn fight that badly?"

At that, the two insensate heads slowly rose up, each snout silently turning to face Ranma. At first she thought that the other heads had regained consciousness, but then she noticed that their eyes were a milky gray, while head one's eyes were orbs of gleaming pitch that glared daggers at the redhead.

"It's on, jackass!" Head One snarled as the two other heads bolted forward, jaws snapping.

* * *

"Hey! Is he still behind us?" Kurumu yelled as she followed Moka outside, bursting from the rear door of the main school building and promptly spreading her wings to take flight.

Yukari, who was still being held in Kurumu's arms, held her hat down tightly as the ground seemed to plummet below her.

"I think so! He should be too big to fit through those utility closet doors we escaped through, though!" Yukari yelled back.

It had surprised all of them that Jin had been so stubborn hounding them, but the yheti had proven far too ponderous and slow to have a real chance of catching the trio. Whatever else one could say about Moka's physical abilities, she was a perfectly capable sprinter, and Kurumu had managed to keep up a good flight speed even while carrying Yukari the whole time.

Moka glanced upward. "Kurumu, are you okay? Do you need to put Yukari down?"

"Are you kidding?" The succubus asked as she turned in the air, hovering in place, "I've had makeup kits that weigh more than this! I'm fine!"

"Was that a compliment?" Yukari asked uncertainly, twisting her head around to look Kurumu in the eyes.

"Not really, but here's one for you," the bluette said with a grin, "good job on the illusion! I swear, if you weren't such an abysmal actor I would have thought Ranma had really come back!"

"Yeah! You were great, Yukari!" Moka cheered from below, offering a thumbs-up.

_Boom!_

Yukari smirked. "Well, it's only natural! I am a genius after all!"

_Boom!_

Kurumu frowned. "Hey, can you try putting your genius toward figuring out what's making those noises? I think it's getting closer."

_BOOM!_

"Oh, that's just the yheti," Yukari said, still smirking, "naturally, if he was having trouble getting through the tight spaces, he'd resort to simply plowing through the walls rather than going the long way to get outside."

_BOOM!_

"He's still chasing us?" Moka gasped.

"Why didn't you tell us that before?" Kurumu shouted, causing the young witch to wince.

"Well, I was going to, but I didn't want to interrupt all the praise I've had coming for so long," Yukari reasoned.

_BOOM!_ "Oh, YEAH!" Jin burst from the outer wall of the school building, emerging from the structure covered in dust and plaster and with dozens of splinters tangled in his hair. "Special Compliance Squad pursuit technique: Kool-Aid blitz!" The yheti shouted as he shook himself to get rid of some of the debris.

As Kurumu and Moka went white, Yukari scoffed. "Don't worry! If we're outside then it's to our advantage! If he can't catch us in the hallways, he has no chance out here!"

"I have a plan for that, actually," Jin said conversationally. "Behold, the technique passed down through generations of yheti for catching prey in the snow-capped peaks!"

With that, Jin started sucking in air, and Moka cried out in surprise as she held her skirt down from being caught in the vacuum.

"What's he trying to do? Suck her up?" Kurumu asked, confused. "Should we help her?"

Yukari frowned. "I'm... not sure. It doesn't look like he can take in enough air to actually draw a person closer..."

Sure enough, Jin soon closed his mouth without Moka having budged an inch, although his chest was now bulging from his ballooning lungs.

"HOOPWAH!" Jin opened his mouth skyward, and a trembling orb of bright blue shot up into the air, accompanied by a howling wind that swirled about and forced Kurumu to flap her wings much harder to stay stable.

"Maybe we should start pushing our 'strategic advantage' now!" Yukari said, pointing to the forest of dry, dead trees, "I don't like the looks of that!"

Kurumu and Moka nodded and started to flee once again. As they made for the trees, however, Jin's voice followed them.

"It's too late. You can't get away now."

Kurumu didn't know what the Enforcer was talking about until she caught a falling speck of white out of the corner of her eye and immediately stopped short.

Moka too started to slow down as she saw snowflakes falling ahead of her. "Snow? Now? But autumn barely started!"

The vampiress gasped as a freezing wind suddenly ripped through the area, forcing her to shield her face from the cold.

When it had passed, Moka took another look and started gaping; the entire forest ahead of her was now in the midst of a full-blown snowstorm, with wild whips of icy wind cutting through the trees and causing many to sway and snap.

"Whoa! What's with the crazy weather?" Kurumu shouted as she tried to keep her position while being buffeted by the raging winds.

"Dang! He summoned a blizzard! That's a pretty impressive breath weapon!" Yukari admitted as she held her hat down once again.

"Ack! I have to land! Hold on!" Kurumu said as she tried to follow one of the blisteringly cold gusts to the ground without giving up too much of her lift.

Moka rushed up to the other girls as Kurumu touched down unsteadily, idly rubbing her own shoulders to shake off the snow that kept trying to gather there. "Are you two okay?"

"I'm fine, but there's no way I can fly through THAT," Kurumu grumbled as she thrust a hand toward the forest quickly being blasted with snow and ice. As if to underline her point, one of the skinnier trees suddenly snapped in two, with the top part being carried off in the fierce wind.

Yukari glanced back behind them, and her eyes narrowed. "I see. This IS a technique to catch prey."

The older girls grimaced as they too looked back, noting that Jin hadn't followed them any further. No doubt it was at least partially because he was short of breath after spitting out a full-force blizzard, but it was also because they had little choice but to return to him; centered around the yheti, and stretching about two hundred feet from the school building into the forest, the sky was calm and still, with nothing but a gentle, sparse snowfall hinting at the unnatural weather surrounding it.

"This is crazy," Kurumu hissed as she squinted against a burst of wind that blew a flurry of snow into her face. "It hasn't been a minute and there's already an inch of snow on the ground! And these winds! We won't make it if we keep going! Not dressed like this!"

"But is there any way to get past HIM?" Moka asked as she backed away from the storm, glancing over at the gasping yheti.

Yukari snapped her fingers. "I've got it! Let's bring out Evil Moka!"

As Moka blinked, Kurumu flinched. "Whoa! Hey! Isn't that a bit dangerous?"

"We're caught between a deadly blizzard and a rampaging yheti; this situation is already more than 'a bit dangerous'," the young witch reasoned. "Besides, Evil Moka's never attacked or shown any real antipathy toward us! As long as Senpai isn't around it'll be fine!"

Moka looked nervous about this course of action, but couldn't think of anything to refute Yukari's reasoning. "So what do we do?"

"HYAH!" Yukari wasted no more time, grabbing hold of the Rosario and tugging with all her might.

_Clonk!_ "Ah!" Ow!"

Kurumu's face darkened as she watched Yukari pull Moka down by her neck collar, smashing their foreheads together painfully.

After the two staggered briefly, Yukari regained her senses first and gave the Rosario another sharp - though less forceful - tug. "Hey! It's not coming off? Why not? Isn't it supposed to come off?"

"Ow! I don't know!" Moka admitted, tugging at her collar. "Not so hard! It hurts!"

"But didn't Tsukune pull it off by accident last time? Why was he able to do it?" Kurumu asked, scratching her head.

Moka shivered as another cold gust blew by. "I have no idea! It doesn't usually come off!"

Biting back a complaint about how the vampiress was rebuilding her useless streak, Kurumu turned around and started stalking away from the freezing winds, her claws extending from her fingers.

"Kurumu?" Moka asked nervously. Yukari spared a glance at the succubus, but was still examining the Rosario closely to look for any sort of clue as to how it might come off.

"Well, our options are freeze to death or go down fighting, right?" the bluette asked as she walked toward Jin, feeling the air temperature rise considerably as she got closer to the yheti.

Jin had finished catching his breath as he watched the girls discuss their options, and he gripped his oversized baton tightly as Kurumu approached. "Ah, I love it when a plan comes together," the snow beast mused aloud, "it combines the pure satisfaction of a task completed with the additional pleasure of seeing your opponents' hubris shattered by your own brilliance."

"And what do you plan to do when you Enforcers lose all authority and Ranma comes back looking for his friends?" Kurumu asked as she halted about ten feet away from the muscle-bound monster.

Jin shrugged. "I plan to tell him Professor Richard did it," he said simply, "it's not like you'll be alive to tell him the truth. And I seriously doubt the Professor keeps careful track of all his victims."

Kurumu's expression darkened. "Oh. That's... That's actually kind of plausible. You really are smarter than the others."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Jin said, smirking as he raised his baton.

_CRACK!_ The yheti smashed his weapon straight down into the ground, and Kurumu saw that the ground immediately started icing over in a line heading straight toward her.

"Nice try!" she shouted as she lifted up into the air, rising high above the attack.

_Shwnk!_ The succubus couldn't help but flinch as a tree-sized icicle erupted from the ground where she had been standing, even if she was high enough that the attack didn't so much as splash snow on her.

"Yukari, you're the genius, right? Think of something while I hold him off!" Kurumu commanded as she started circling around the yheti.

Yukari saluted as she grabbed Moka's hand, finally giving up on the Rosario. "Roger!"

Kurumu watched carefully for an opening as Jin watched her in turn, resting his giant baton on his shoulder.

The succubus had the advantage of flight, but really didn't know if she could cause enough damage to Jin to have any chance of victory, even assuming he was clumsy enough that he didn't pummel her the moment she came within reach.

'Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained,' Kurumu thought bitterly as she started to dive. "This is for Tsukune and the future of Youkai Academy, you cold-blooded ogre!"

Jin snorted and brought his baton in front of him, holding each end in his massive fists. Kurumu swept back and forth on her approach, trying to keep the elemental beast from guessing where and when she would be in range.

The yheti's eyes narrowed, and suddenly Jin brought up his baton as it glowed a mystical blue. "THERE!"

_Shwk!_ Kurumu's nails scythed into Jin's side as he smashed the massive weapon into the ground, and Kurumu briefly touched down behind the yheti before vaulting up into the air again.

"Ha! You missed... me?" Kurumu trailed off as she heard Yukari and Moka cry out, and whirled around in the air.

"Yukari, look out!" Moka shouted as she tackled the young witch onto the ground.

_Shwnk! Shwnk!_ A pair of huge icicles stabbed out of the ground, missing the two girls by mere inches as bits of ice sprayed into the air.

Jin chuckled as he scratched at his right forearm, seeming to ignore the thin gashes on his side. "Thought you could sneak by me, eh?"

Kurumu was about to make another attack while the Enforcer seemed to be ignoring her, but then realized how close Yukari and Moka were to the building.

"Hey! Wait a minute! We're you making a break for the school on your own? What about me?" the succubus demanded.

"We were going to come back for you! Yukari said so!" Moka insisted as she got to her feet shakily, helping Yukari up as well. "Right? That is what you said!"

"Well, of course we would come back," Yukari confirmed, "but do you seriously think she'd still be in one piece by then?"

A vein popped up on Kurumu's head. "You little rat! You WERE going to leave me!"

"Don't worry!" Yukari said, saluting again, "we'll make sure you're avenged!"

Jin snorted as he started twirling the baton in one hand. "Don't get ahead of yourselves, ladies," he said as he stomped toward Moka and Yukari, "I don't plan on letting ANY of you get away from me..."

Jin raised up his baton once again, clasping it with both hands while pointing the head toward the ground.

"This field will be your grave, and your frozen corpses a persisting reminder of the fate that awaits everyone who defies the Protection Committee," Jin said calmly, a light gust blowing his long hair behind him. "Or, at least, that's what you'll remind ME of. Everyone else will just chalk you up as another nameless casualty on account of this school hiring violent psychotics as teachers." And then he drove the baton down.

_WHOOM!_ Immediately after the impact, ice started to seep backward from Jin's position, crawling over the ground in a shimmering wave until it reached the school building.

_Shnk! Shnk! Crack!_ Dozens of icicle spikes burst from the ground adjacent to the wall, blocking the doors, first-floor windows, and even the massive hole that Jin had put in the wall.

"I don't remember anything like this mentioned in the Monster Encyclopedia segment," grumbled Yukari as she and Moka backed away from the school building.

Jin leaned on his baton as he grinned at the two girls. "No escape, no survival. Just as planned."

"Bet you didn't plan on ME!" Kurumu suddenly shouted as she suddenly dove into the yheti's back, plunging her elongated nails straight into his cold, muscular flesh.

Jin grumbled incoherently as he staggered forward, and then reached a hand back to try and grab the succubus.

Kurumu withdrew immediately, leaving Jin's thick, hairy fingers grasping air as she took to the sky above. "Jeez, didn't that hurt? Cut me some slack, here!"

Jin shrugged as he turned to regard the bat-winged girl. "It stung enough that I want to kill you first. That's something, right?"

"The sound came from over here!" Came an unfamiliar voice.

"Where the HELL did this blizzard come from?"

Jin's expression soured as they all heard someone shouting from within the snow-whipped forest, and the girls felt their hopes rise as three figures staggered, shivering, into the relatively calm battlefield while a fourth followed them out normally.

The first three students - two girls and a boy - the girls didn't recognize, but the fourth was unmistakably Kouma Gamaroshi. Unlike the others, who were trembling and trying to brush snow off themselves, he seemed only mildly annoyed at the blizzard.

The reason for his irritation became clear as soon as he was out of the icy wind. "Yeesh, can't even light up, it's so bad," Kouma grumbled as he cupped his hands around a cigarette dangling from his mouth. A second later he put his hands down, the cigarette burning.

"Kouma! It's you! Thank goodness!" Moka shouted in surprise and relief, surprising the four newcomers.

The other boy in particular seemed very interested as he looked over the girls arrayed against the shaggy monster in the middle of the calm, snowy field.

"So, wait, you know these girls?" he asked.

Kouma shrugged. "Eh, they're just some of Saotome's groupies."

"Hey! Who are you calling a groupie?" Kurumu snapped, "Yukari's the only Ranma groupie here!"

"Speaking of groupies," Yukari began, not bothering to deny the charge leveled against her, "who are these people? I've never seen them before."

Kouma glared at her before blowing out a cloud of smoke. "I DO have a life outside of following Ranma around and letting him humiliate me," he said irritably.

"You DO?" Yukari asked incredulously, annoying the hellhound further.

"Would somebody like to explain this weather?" one of the girls asked, "I know the reports aren't always accurate, but 'suspiciously localized snowstorms' is a bit beyond the pale, don't you think?"

"Yes, well, I would explain that," Jin said, finally speaking up as he drove his baton into the ground again, "but there's no point since you'll all be dead soon."

"Huh? Why would we-" the other girl began nervously before Moka shouted a warning.

"Run! Now! The attack comes from the ground!"

_Skrak!_ A twelve-foot tall spike of ice jutted from the Earth at the group's feet, causing them to almost trip over themselves as they scattered.

"Hey, what's the big idea? We didn't do anything!" One of the girls complained as the yheti stomped forward.

_Whack!_ That girl's eyes widened as Jin suddenly darted forward, smashing the head of his baton into her stomach. Rather than merely crushing her bones and organs and knocking her aside, as everyone expected, the girl was frozen over on the spot, her skin, clothes, and every single hair suddenly wrapped in ice.

"You've done nothing in particular to deserve this," Jin admitted as he turned toward the others, "but the current plans calls for the elimination of all witnesses. Increasing the body count also helps it resemble one of Professor Richard's massacres." He reached to the side, taking hold of the frozen girl's head.

_Crack!_ Twisting sharply, Jin snapped the head off of the ice statue before tossing it negligently to the side.

"Sorry about this," he said as he stepped forward once more.

"Huh," Yukari's eyes followed the frozen, decapitated head as it bounced along the ground, eventually settling in a small pile of snow with its eyes staring up at the overcast sky in permanent shock. "So that's what that big stick does. Yeah, we're gonna want to avoid that."

"Y-You're horrible!" Moka gasped at Jin, almost in shock after seeing such a casual, negligent murder. "How could you do that to some innocent bystander?"

Jin snorted as he started moving purposefully toward the remaining interlopers. "Don't take this the wrong way; I don't particularly want to kill you," he said as he swiped horizontally at the unidentified boy, who darted away with considerable agility and avoided the blow completely, "but it's all part of the plan. It won't work otherwise. Probably."

"Hey! Whoa! We don't even know what's going on!" Cried the remaining girl as she scrambled away from the menacing yheti. "Kouma! Ginnei! Do something!"

As Jin charged again, she and the other boy, apparently named Ginnei, moved away to get as much room as possible. Kouma, on the other hand, stayed where he was and puffed his cigarette as the yheti stomped toward him.

"One hit from my Ice Breaker will freeze you so deeply, even your blood will turn to ice!" Jin said as he spun his baton around in one hand. "It's practically painless, so just stay still and it'll be over before you know it!"

Jin suddenly leapt into the air, stabbing his baton in an underarm swing as he covered the remaining distance between him and Kouma.

* * *

"Hello ignorant humans, and welcome to another mildly diverting informational segment to designed to fill out the chapter's word count without having to come up with more jokes," said Jadeite, looking irritated as he stood in front of the blackboard usually used by Shizuka Nekonome.

"I am Jadeite, and I'll be covering the magic weapons and mythic artifacts aspect of this serial, in part because I haven't gotten much screen time lately, and in part because Miss Nekonome is only slightly more well-versed in magic than she is in theoretical particle physics. With that said, let's begin."

He turned to the blackboard, which had several chalk drawings of blunt weapons, ranging from a giant club to a hammer to Jin's oversized police baton.

"The Ice Breaker is not actually a unique item at all, but rather a series of weapons unique to certain yheti families. This probably comes as a surprise to most, as yhetis are not craftsmen of any note, but there is one resource they uniquely have access to that no other creature does: the remains of their ancestors."

Jadeite moved to the next section, which showed a skull surrounded by ice cubes. "Yhetis' bones maintain a much colder temperature than the rest of their bodies, and if buried intact, they retain their curious properties for centuries, eventually fossilizing and turning into a deathly cold crystalline material. By gathering this material and packing it into some sort of weapon - almost invariably a club of some sort - the weapon gains specific and rather impressive magical qualities."

Jadeite rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The ability of an Ice Breaker to absorb almost unlimited amounts of heat is used as a basis for numerous techniques and spells, but one of its most basic abilities is to absorb heat energy on impact rather than simply imparting kinetic energy, as any club is obviously meant to do. It's similar to Newton's Law 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction,' except that it's MAGIC, so only an idiot would try to explain it with physics."

Jadeite returned to the first set of drawings, pointing at the picture of Jin's baton. "Mister Kaishuu's Ice Breaker in particular is one hundred and fifty centimeters long, and the main shaft has a diameter of twenty centimeters. The body is mainly composed of carbon steel with a coat of super-conductive black paint, ensuring that as little energy as possible is lost to insulation when freezing a target. Not only does this mean that Jin's baton didn't meet international safety standards for peacekeeping equipment even BEFORE considering its deadly magical core, but it also means that it wasn't the result of yheti smithing, as its manufacture exceeds the capabilities of even their most advanced forging techniques, which invariably involve smashing a rock with an even bigger rock. Obviously Jin got someone else to make his weapon, while he supplied the all-important ancient materials." Jadeite snorted. "You really can find anything on the Internet nowadays."

The Dark General nodded his head. "That concludes this lecture. Hopefully the tension of the prevailing conflict has mostly dissipated by now and lowered your expectations."

* * *

_Whomp!_ Kouma winced as the Ice Breaker smashed into his chest, and his cigarette almost fell from his mouth as a paralyzing chill ran up and down his body.

"That's two down," Jin said as he reared a fist back to smash his newly frozen victim.

Of course, that plan of action depended on his foe actually BEING frozen, so when the student he had assaulted suddenly raised his arm to take his cigarette out of his mouth, Jin hesitated at exactly the wrong moment.

"Fwoof!" Kouma suddenly blew a cloud of black, ash-filled smoke right into the yheti's face, causing Jin to stagger backward as he coughed violently. Then, with a ferocious snarl and a burst of sparks, he drove a fist forward into Jin's chest.

_BWOOM!_ Jin howled in pain as he was hurled backward through the air, a large fireball scorching his hair and flesh even as his ribs protested against the explosive force of the punch. The yheti hit the ground on his side, but quickly rolled up onto his feet, eying the hellhound warily.

"Kouma! You're okay!" Ginnei said happily, glad that he would not have to try to play hero just yet.

"Huh? He didn't even get frosted," Kurumu noted in surprise.

"Well, naturally, freezing a hellhound solid is pretty unlikely," Yukari pointed out, "a typical creature's body temperature ranges from thirty to forty degrees Celsius. A hellhound's core body temp is, what, four times that hot? Five? There's a reason why he can just stroll through a blizzard like it's nothing."

Jin slowly stood up, his eyes narrowing. "A fire beast. I see."

"Looks like you're out of luck, Frosty," Kouma growled as he took another puff off of his cigarette, "I would have kicked your ass just for being an Enforcer before, but you just killed an acquaintance of mine." His voice started to rumble as flames started flaring in a ring around his feet, vaporizing the snow beneath him. "Did you think I'd let you get away with that?"

Jin planted his baton on one end as he stood tall. "It's fine. I have a plan for this as well."

_FWOOSH!_ Kouma smashed his knuckles together as he stalked toward the yheti, his eyes glowing red like hot coals. "I hope your plan involves an ambulance," he said, his voice rumbling like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

"It does not!" Jin said firmly. "Rather than that..."

The yheti suddenly fell onto his knees, and then bowed deeply enough to touch his forehead into the snow. "I'm sorry. Please forgive-"

_BWOOM!_ A blazing haymaker drove Jin's face further into the ground, and then Kouma pulled the yheti up out by his head before smashing a knee into the Enforcer's face, knocking him over onto his back.

"Woohoo! You get him, boy!" Called the girl that still hadn't been identified.

Kouma whirled around, apparently furious about the moral support. "Shut up, fox! I'm not doing this for your sake!"

The so-called "fox" stuck her tongue out playfully, which only seemed to infuriate the hellhound further.

"Hey, Eyebrows!" Yukari shouted as Jin started getting to his feet, "this isn't over yet!"

Kouma promptly turned around. "What, are you STILL-"

_WHAM!_ A meaty backhand took the hellhound completely by surprise, and Kouma was sent spinning through the air toward the trees.

"HWWAAAAAAAAARGH!" Jin bellowed incoherently as the blizzard surrounding the field started to build up, and then the yheti slammed his fists repeatedly into the ground furiously. _Whoom! Whoom! WHOOM!_

Moka almost staggered from the resulting tremors. "I think we just made him mad!"

"Ya think?" Kurumu grumbled as she tried to shield herself from the stronger winds. "Should we make a break for the school building? I might be able to cut through the icicles in the way!"

"I'M not getting anywhere near that thing," Yukari mumbled as Jin yelled and charged across the field.

"Guh! Thanks, Gin. Bastard caught me by surprise," Kouma mumbled as Ginnei helped him up.

They both halted as they saw the yheti charge toward them, and Kouma quickly pushed his friend aside.

"Stay out of my blast radius! I'll deal with this!" the hellhound snarled as he jumped forward.

Ducking slightly as he moved into a boxer's stance, Kouma dodged a wild swipe from Jin before jabbing the larger monster in the side.

It was doubtful the yheti even felt the light punch, but Kouma twisted into an uppercut that trailed flames behind his fist as it ascended toward Jin's face.

_Clang!_ Jin blocked with the Ice Breaker as he let loose another howl, and most of those gathered were silently surprised and impressed that the yheti could manage a decent defense in his current enraged state.

Not Kouma, though. He was more surprised that there had been no explosion from the attack.

"Whoa!" The hellhound ducked away from one of Jin's wild swings, and then he smirked when he saw the Enforcer rearing back the Ice Breaker to attack. "Hey, hey, what're you doing? That weapon won't work on-"

_CRACK!_ Kouma promptly crumpled onto the ground as Jin smashed him over the head with the massive steel club, and then the yheti growled angrily as he kicked the hellhound across the ground and into a snow bank. Kouma's cigarette tumbled from his lips as he went, hissing as it fell into a bit of snow and was extinguished.

"Well, of course he can always just use it as a plain blunt weapon," Yukari mumbled, "speaking of which, we should really leave while the yheti's being drawn away from the school building. I'm pretty sure Eyebrows is the only one he can't instantly kill with that baton of his."

_FWOOM!_ A brilliant flare of heat instantly vaporized a great deal of the snow around Kouma as he surged to his feet, his teeth bared and black smoke seeping from the corner of his lips.

"Why should we leave?" Kurumu asked as Kouma charged the Enforcer in a berserker's rush, fireballs bursting behind him from every footstep. "Doesn't Gamaroshi have the upper hand? He's a fire monster and Jin is an ice monster. He should have this wrapped up faster than you can say 'super effective'."

Kouma started to rain punches down on Jin, who defended closely with the Ice Breaker as Yukari shook her head.

"In an even fight, probably. But Jin has that weapon."

"You mean that weapon that barely fazed him the first time around?" Asked the unnamed girl, who was now approaching the other three.

Yukari sighed as she pointed toward the unfolding battle. "Just watch for a moment."

_Bwang! Clang! Clunk!_ Kouma snarled incoherently as his fists slammed into the shaft of the massive baton, each strike causing only a sharp hissing sound and a dull ache in his knuckles.

"BROOOOAUGH!" Jin roared as he tried to ram forward, only for Kouma to dart to the side and evade him completely.

"Die, you filthy ice ape!" Kouma growled as he slammed his palms together and then thrust them forward, releasing a gyrating sphere of flame toward his enemy.

Jin almost casually swiped his weapon through the projectile, causing it to collapse instantly in the air. The yheti promptly began another charge, leaping into the air while hammering the Ice Breaker down below him.

Ginnei's voice shook slightly as he pointed out what was now obvious to everyone. "That weapon's absorbing his flames! That means..."

"That means that both of their special abilities are all but useless in this fight. Which in turn means that the winner will be whoever has the advantage in a raw, brutal melee," the young witch explained. "Honestly, the pup's chances aren't terrible even then, but I sure don't wanna be around long enough to see how this ends up."

"We have to help him!" said Moka firmly.

"The really hot pink-haired chick is right," said Ginnei, nodding seriously, "we can't just leave him on his own."

"I would like to disagree and offer my help in making sure Kou-chan's noble sacrifice isn't in vain," said the girl that had accompanied Ginnei.

Kurumu sweatdropped. "You know, if you want to leave that badly and you can get past the ice barrier, there's nothing really stopping you..."

She brightened. "You're right!" Then she whirled around and bolted for the school building, leaving the others in a light cloud of kicked-up snow.

"Okay then," Moka said, a sweatdrop on her head as she tried to keep a serious composure, "we have to get that baton away from him so that Kouma can finish him off."

"I'm with you, babe," Ginnei said as he stepped forward, smiling brightly. "By the way, my name is Ginnei Morioka, but you can call me Gin! You have a name, or can I just call you gorgeous?"

"Oi, this isn't the time or place for that!" Kurumu snapped. "If we're gonna do this, we have to do this now!"

Moka nodded sharply as Yukari sighed. "Right! Let's go!"

* * *

_BWAM!_ Ranma leapt away as a head swung at her like a flail, smashing into one of the statues and reducing it to rubble.

The other two heads darted for the redhead, who managed to twist in the air so the the first one missed before she kicked off of its neck to evade the second.

"What the hell is this?" Ranma complained as she hopped backward, slightly winded. "I already knocked two of those heads out! It's like you're even faster than before!"

"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way," Head One said as the other two bent down and started biting chunks out of the table, "without those two idiots awake, I have full control of our body! You're finished!" With that, the insensate heads hurled the pieces of table at their foe.

Ranma jumped over the first bit of debris and then twisted into an aerial kick to smash the second to splinters. "Are you serious? You get STRONGER as I knock more of you out?"

"I told you you'd regret saving me for last!" mocked the remaining head of Volos before the other two again tried to snap up their foe.

Ranma took the dazed-looking second head on directly, hopping up over its snapping jaws and landing knees-first on its skull. "If that's the case, why didn't you just knock these two out to begin with?" she asked as she dove away from Head Three and landed on the floor at Volos' feet.

Volos immediately tried to stomp on her, but the redhead easily evaded the clumsy attack and started circling around the hydra.

"Oh, believe me, I would," Head One explained as he kept the other heads snapping at Ranma's heels, "but the WHINING afterward... Even winning isn't worth it."

Ranma kicked away one of the heads and then jumped onto the sill of one of the stained-glass windows. "Man, you've got lots of problems, don't you?"

"I don't want pity from someone who's about to get himself eaten!" Volos growled as all three heads rose up in preparation to resume the assault.

Ranma ignored the taunt, focusing on what she had gathered so far about Volos' attack patterns. 'He prefers to attack with the other heads, probably because he doesn't want to put his last conscious mind in danger... or maybe because he doesn't feel the other heads' pain. Either way, I have an idea.'

"It was a bad idea to turn me into a girl!" Ranma crowed suddenly, a grin spreading over her face. "I'll have you know that I'm weaker like this, but much faster!"

"I noticed," Head One grumbled. "Whatever. You'll tire out eventually. One wrong move, and you're lunch meat!"

Ranma snorted, and then her body vanished in a blur of motion.

"Wh-What?" Volos flinched backward as a red streak cut through the air in front of him, and Head Three belatedly bowed down as it tried to snap at the enemy.

Ranma landed briefly on top of Head Three's neck, and then she leapt up as Head two snapped at her, landing on its neck. This prompted Head Three to try again, curling up and over the overreaching throat of Head Two.

Head One growled in frustration as he watched his fellow heads dart this way and that to try and catch their prey, only to get hopelessly tangled and twisted together.

"Hey! What're you doing, you idiots! You're going to tie yourselves in a knot!" The conscious head groused as the insensate ones stopped attacking.

Ranma used the moment of inattention to land on the floor and dash behind the multi-headed creature, waiting for the time to complete the final move of her plan.

Volos swore under his breath as heads Two and Three slowly started to untangle, and a hole between the two twisted-up necks started to open.

_Thwack!_ Head One yelped as it took a heavy kick to the back of its head, shoving it forward into the hole and forcing it through between the scaly, intertwined flesh.

"Hey! What're you-" Ranma bounced up off of the complaining head and leapt up to the other two that were still in the process of trying to pull apart.

"This should do it," the redhead murmured as she took hold of some of the webbing that was still stuck on Head Two's jaw. With a few sharp motions, the two insensate heads were wrapped up and struggling mutely against each other, unable to gain the leverage necessary to break free.

"Hrk! Guh!" Volos stumbled this way and that as Head One tried to pull free from the entangled necks, but to no avail. "Little gender-flipping bastard! I'll eat your spleen!"

Ranma hopped down onto the floor before glancing up at the hydra. "Doubt that. Hold still for a moment, won't you?"

"You son of a-" Volos snarled before coughing violently, finding his air supply constricted by his current predicament. "Huh? Wait, why are you glowing like that?"

Ranma spread her arms in front of her as a coruscating orb of power grew between her hands, and then thrust her arms forward. "Mouko takabisha!"

Volos simply gaped as the sphere of light suddenly expanded out toward him, unable to do anything but wobble back and forth before the energy blast hammered into him.

_Whoom!_ The floor shook slightly as the massive beast fell over, its insensate heads still tangled up and its tail twitching every few seconds.

"All right! Good job, Ranma!"

The pigtailed girl whirled around at hearing a new voice, and she brightened as she saw Tsukune stepping into the chamber.

"Hey Tsukune! I took care of that hydra like you wanted!" Ranma said, walking up to Volos and kicking him in the leg. "He gave me a little trouble, but it's all clear now."

Hokuto, who was still watching from his seat at the now-devastated debate table, glanced to the side as he watched the pumpkin-headed Enforcer slink away silently, and then stood up.

"It would seem we have another unfamiliar face," Hokuto said amiably, walking around the pile of debris and smiling at Tsukune. "I must apologize about the mess; we're in the middle of resolving a proposition regarding the future of disciplinary action in this school. I am Kaneshiro Hokuto, president of the student council. Who might you be?"

Tsukune stood stunned for a moment, staring at the red-haired boy. "Uh... Oh! Right! I'm Aono Tsukune," he said quickly, thrown off by how cordial and normal Hokuto seemed at a glance, "I wanted to talk to you, actually. It's about the Protection Committee's writ here on campus."

Hokuto adjusted his glasses as Tsukune approached. "Yes, it would seem that there's some... discontent with the way they do things," he admitted, gesturing to the unconscious hydra in the middle of the room. "As it seems their abuses of power have stirred up a miniature rebellion among our students, perhaps it's time we discussed some serious reform of their mandate and powers."

Tsukune almost shed a tear right there as he saw the pieces of his plan sliding together perfectly. He did it! Finally, the corrupt would be punished and the innocent could go about their business without fear! It was-

"Sorry we're late to this VERY important meeting about our future role at this school," Keito's voice hissed from behind Tsukune, "it seems we weren't invited."

Tsukune muttered a few ungentlemanly things under his breath and hung his head before he slowly turned around.

Walking into the student council chambers was Keito in her monster form and two young men that he had never met.

He still recognized the one in front from a picture, though; a young man with platinum blond hair and a high forehead, marked with a pair of black spots above his eyes. It was Kuyo, the current head of the Protection Committee.

"Ah, I see Kuyo has arrived," Hokuto said calmly. "Then all the players in this game have assembled, it would seem."

"And we'll get right to your... 'Negotiations'," Kuyo said with a sneer before glancing to the side at Ranma, "but first..."

Kuyo's form seemed to suddenly explode with white fire as Keito and the other Enforcer stepped back, "I will rid us of the unnecessary interference."

With a contemptuous sweep of his hand, Kuyo summoned a whirlwind of flame high above those gathered in the hall, and then ,with a slight smirk, he pointed at the redhead.

Ranma stared upward as the fire suddenly descended toward her, only marginally aware of Tsukune shouting an entirely unnecessary warning and Keito laughing gleefully at her imminent demise.

"Really? A flame spiral?" Ranma deadpanned before she shrugged and reared back a fist. "Well, whatever. Hiryu shoten ha."

* * *

"HrrrrrRRRRRRRAUGH!" The enraged scream of two elemental beasts merged into one tremendous roar in the early evening sky, overwhelming the howling local winds as fists pounded against steel in a furious rhythm.

_Clang! Clang! Whang! Wham!_ Kouma's knuckles slammed repeatedly into cold steel as Jin guarded himself, and then he followed with an uppercut that sent the yheti staggering back as it tried to keep the Ice Breaker between them.

Jin kicked at his foe as he tried to bring himself back in balance, not doing any real damage but keeping Kouma back for a precious second before swiping his baton at the hellhound.

_Crack!_ Kouma spun to the side as the blunt weapon smashed into his cheek, and let out a painful grunt as the yheti suddenly grabbed him up with his free hand.

"Die, you damned dog!" Jin growled as he slammed Kouma into the ground, following up by grabbing the Ice Breaker with both hands in preparation to drive it down into the stunned boxer.

Before he could, however, a brown blur zipped past, and Jin suddenly found himseld off-balance as he felt something trying to tug the Ice Breaker from his grasp.

"Hey! Quit interfering, pests!" Growled the yheti, yanking his baton free.

Turning toward the source of the resistance, Jin growled as he saw yet another canine foe come to annoy him. "Another dog to put down, is it?" The yheti snarled.

"Gin? Wh-What are you doing?" Kouma gasped out as he recognized Ginnei's monster form. He had grown more than a foot taller, and sprouted a thick, wild coat of brown fur all over his body, which, while still bipedal and mostly humanoid, now sported hind legs and a head like a wolf's.

"I'm saving your tail!" Growled out the werewolf as he started circling Jin in short, quick hops.

"We don't have a full moon out right now, idiot! You can't beat him!" Kouma insisted as he struggled to his feet. "One hit from that stupid ice club-"

"And you're DONE FOR!" Jin finished as he reared back his weapon for a wide, lethal sweep.

Once again, however, he felt something grab onto it just before he attacked, and glanced back to see that this time Moka had grabbed hold.

"GRAAAAUGH!" The yheti almost flung the vampiress into the air as he pulled the Ice Breaker free, but Moka let go and then quickly scrambled out of reach.

"You little pests, I'll-" Jin didn't even get to finish this time before he felt a tug on his baton from the side, and he promptly snapped it up as Ginnei darted away from him.

"Thieving scum!" The Enforcer roared as he held up the Ice Breaker over his head with one hand as he swiped blindly around himself with the other, trying to keep his precious weapon out of the reach of his opponents.

If it weren't for the fact that he had chosen his stung, partially paralyzed arm to hold the Ice Breaker out of reach, his grip probably wouldn't have failed. But as it was, the yheti's growling stopped abruptly as he felt the cold steel grip slip upward out of his grasp.

"I've got it!" Kurumu cheered as she started beating her wings as hard as she could, trying to get as much altitude as possible to get away from the snow beast. "Geez, it's cold just touching it!"

Jin didn't waste any breath roaring in anger this time, and promptly blasted a cloud of freezing air skyward before Kurumu could put more than a few meters between them.

"Gwah! H-Hey!" Kurumu's wings went numb in seconds as frost coated her body, and the Ice Breaker slipped from her arms as she began a dead fall toward the snow-covered ground.

As Jin quickly maneuvered to catch his weapon, however, his efforts were spoiled once again as a giant pink hand appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the baton before it was within reach.

"Ha! I've got it! I've got it!" Yukari cheered from several meters away as she waved her wand in the air. "When wizards and witches need a hand they always choose Bigsby!"

_Whump!_ Kurumu was not so lucky, of course, and the succubus landed painfully in the snow where she shivered pathetically.

"You ignorant worms..." Jin snarled as he took a step toward Yukari, instantly dousing her glee. "I'm going to rip-"

_Boom!_ Jin's threat was cut short by a haymaker into his back that sent flames blossoming over his shaggy gray hair.

"Hyaaargh! Y-You!" Jin whirled around just in time to catch a straight punch to the jaw that staggered him, and as the yheti tried to get his bearings Kouma drew his arms in, concentrating silently.

"You... You won't get away with this," Jin mumbled as his jaw smoldered, "I'll be back... With a plan!"

"I've got a plan for you, snow ape," Kouma growled quietly as embers sparked around his knuckles, "it's called VULCAN DRIVER!"

A corona of red fire bursting all around him, Kouma bolted forward into another haymaker, slamming Jin hard in the solar plexus (or yheti equivalent) before raining a staccato of punches into the yheti's gut, each one followed by a burst of flame that had the Enforcer reeling in pain.

After the initial barrage, Kouma ducked back briefly, pulling back his right fist. "Go to hell!"

_BWOOM!_ A heavy uppercut prompted an explosion of fire and magma from the ground underneath the dueling monsters, and Jin's massive, smoking body went sailing through the air as the ground trembled and cracked furiously beneath him.

_WHUMP!_ Jin hit the ground like a sack of bricks, his gaze empty as smoke poured from his open mouth.

"Yeah! We did it!" Yukari cheered, canceling her spell and letting the Ice Breaker fall.

"Yes! YES! Did you see that?" Kouma shouted, thrusting a fist into the air as he stepped on the other elemental beast in victory. "That was awesome! Let's see Saotome pull that off!"

As Ginnei rolled his eyes, Yukari snorted. "Whoa, whoa, slow down there, pup. You only defeated him with our help; it's a little too early to start bragging about being better than Senpai."

"Aw, c'mon!" Kouma said with a grin, so pleased with himself that he completely forgot to be mad at being called "pup," "I just hit a guy with a miniature volcano. What can Saotome do?"

_FWWOOOOOOOOM!_

Moka, who had been helping Kurumu up out of the snow, flinched back from a sudden roaring noise coming from the school building. A few seconds later a part of the structure - though luckily not the portion adjacent to them - was suddenly torn asunder and carried into the sky atop a huge tornado that snaked its way upward into the air.

Yukari raised an eyebrow and deliberately stared at Kouma in askance.

"What? You don't know if that was Saotome or not!" the hellhound protested.

"Help! He can't be stopped!" came a voice shouting from within the school building. "Saotome's throwing tornadoes at people! Flee while you can!" A few seconds later a familiar monster with a jack o'lantern for a head came stumbling out of the school, emerging from a hole someone had melted in Jin's ice barrier. "There's no hope! The Enforcers are finished!" he screamed as he ran through the snowy battlefield, sprinting into the forest and the rapidly weakening blizzard.

Yukari kept staring.

"Oh, leave me alone," Kouma grumbled.

* * *

"Well. That was... intense," Hokuto offered blandly from where he was taking cover behind his chair. "Does Saotome do that often?"

"No, this is pretty new," Tsukune admitted, crouching behind Volos' vast and unconscious bulk for protection, "I mean, it's pretty hard for Ranma to surprise me nowadays, but a cyclone? Kind of a different scale, you know?"

The redhead in question slowly lowered her arm as the winds died down, raining chunks of masonry and splintered furniture down in infrequent clusters.

The two remaining Enforcers were pressed against the walls adjacent the hall entrance, utterly petrified by the sudden display of destructive force as its source calmly stepped forward.

"All right, Kuyo," Ranma said grimly as she pointed toward the unnamed Enforcer, "now we-"

"I'm not Kuyo!" He shouted desperately, his legs trembling.

Ranma blinked. "You're not?" She glanced toward Keito, but was pretty sure the spider monster wasn't head of the Protection Committee. "Wait, then where..."

Keito pointed a quivering hand toward the hole in the ceiling.

"Aw, shoot, THAT was Kuyo?" Ranma asked, slapping herself in the forehead. "Damn. I thought he was just some guard. If I'd known he was the head honcho I wouldn't have taken him down in one hit like that."

Then the redhead frowned and pointed at the remaining male Enforcer. "Don't you guys know how this works? The minions are supposed to come at me first, and THEN the boss attacks! Do you have any idea how anticlimactic this is?"

"I'm sorry!" The male student wailed as he suddenly bolted for the hall exit. "Don't hurt me!"

"Wait, it's over already?"

Ranma developed a nervous tic in her eye as she noticed Shizuka Nekonome at the rear of the student council hall, looking crestfallen as she stood in front of a half-finished sketch of a fox drawn on a portable chalk board.

"Sorry. Maybe next time," Hokuto offered as the nekomata sadly started packing up to leave.

Tsukune sighed as he stood up and once again addressed Hokuto. "Well, I think we should get back to what we were discussing," he said amiably, waving away some dust that was settling on him from above. "Of course, if the Protection Committee has anything to say for itself, it may speak up."

Keito was suddenly aware of the other three occupants of the room (not counting Shizuka, who had just leapt out the window) casting contemptuous glances in her direction before dismissing her entirely. She did not like the feeling. It reminded her of the way that people looked at normal, non-monstrous spiders before they crushed them under a shoe or bit of newspaper.

"Indeed Aono, let's speak," Hokuto said, hauling his chair upright before sitting in it. "It seems to me that the Protection Committee's leadership will have to resign. After that, the student council will began a wholesale reform of their duties and privileges to better reflect our goals for a safe, less criminally engaging campus environment."

"Uhm, do ALL the officers have to resign?" Keito asked somewhat timidly, having unconsciously slunk into a corner by herself.

"I believe that's for the best," Tsukune said firmly. "Any elements of the old Enforcers will try to hold on to as much power as possible if they're still in charge."

"But what about the campus?" Keito asked, beads of sweat crawling down her carapace. "If we're dismissed all at once, we won't be able to keep the peace on campus!"

After everyone else in the room was finished laughing, Tsukune held out his hand for Hokuto to shake. "Thank you, President! I know that if we can overcome this, Youkai Academy will be the better for it!"

"Oh, I do hope so," Hokuto said, smiling broadly as he shook Tsukune's hand, "but you do have a lot of work ahead of you."

"Yes, I..." Tsukune trailed off as he realized that, as far as he knew, he did not actually have much work ahead. "Wait, what do you mean?"

Hokuto's grip on the young human's hand seemed curiously tight as he cleared his throat. "Aono Tsukune, you have impressed our student council with your determination, dedication to justice, and general proximity to someone who can throw tornadoes at people you oppose. I can think of no better candidate to replace Kuyo as Captain of the Protection Committee, and as such I am henceforth appointing you to the position."

For the first time since finding out that he had ended up in a school of monsters, Tsukune experienced the sensation of gloomy awkwardness that came with having one's life forcibly and unexpectedly diverted onto entirely the wrong track. It kind of felt like a trap-door suddenly opened underneath your feet, except without the grim comfort of knowing that you would quickly reach bottom.

"The current Protection Committee objects!" Keito shouted. "Or what's left of it, anyway! I cannot accept handing over control of the committee to a hu-"

Before the spider woman could utter a single syllable more, a red blur zipped by and jabbed her in the larynx, silencing her instantly.

"Oi, don't go saying stupid stuff, all right?" Ranma said as Keito started coughing violently. "Anybody can be appointed no matter what species you are, right?"

"Of course!" Hokuto said brightly. "So long as you're not anything REALLY unpleasant, like a monstrel. Or an elf. You're not an elf, are you? They're not really monsters, so it's unlikely, but..."

"Nope! Then you're good!" Ranma said brightly, giving Tsukune a thumbs-up. "Your plan worked!"

'No! This is all wrong!' Tsukune thought in a panic. "There has to be someone more suitable than me..."

"Well, the only other person who comes to mind is Saotome here," Hokuto said, gesturing to the pigtailed girl, "and he and/or she seems to lack the... zeal for peace and order that you have."

Then the student council president tilted his head to the side. "Also, it might set a bad precedent to hand the position to the person who barged in through the front door and simply beat the current committee comatose. We wouldn't want to give the impression that student government positions can be obtained via duels and bloody massacres."

"S... S... Seconded," Keito managed to spit out as she desperately tried to get her voice back. This situation was already a dozen kinds of bad, but at present she could at least agree that it would be best not to put Ranma in a position of such authority.

"Then Aono it is!" Hokuto said brightly, finally letting go of said student's hand. "Congratulations! I look forward to working with you toward making our campus the best it can be!"

Tsukune didn't respond, but rather stood perfectly still as he stared into space, a small wisp of white smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth.

"Look at that! He's so excited that he's speechless!" Hokuto said.

Looking skeptically at her roommate and noting his obvious unease, Ranma walked over and poked Tsukune in the side.

_Thud!_ The younger human promptly fell over onto the ground, apparently comatose.

"Look at that! He's so excited that he's unconscious!" Hokuto said.

Ranma shrugged and turned toward the student council president. "Can I be vice captain?"

"Sure!"

* * *

End Chapter 11

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"So much snow..." Mizore mumbled happily to herself as she walked through the knee-high snow drifts, marveling at the long stalactites that decorated the otherwise barren trees.

The snow woman very nearly had a spring in her step as she navigated the remains of the sudden blizzard that had apparently engulfed about half a square mile of forest on the edge of Youkai Academy's administrator buildings.

She didn't know the cause of the sudden snowstorm, although it was very obviously magical in nature. Snow that was created by magic simply seemed... different from that which rained down naturally from the sky. It was harder, and the flake structures more chaotic and unnaturally similar to each other, like some semi-omnipotent force was trying to construct a perfect snowflake but just couldn't get it right.

Well, those were her observations, anyway. Mizore doubted that most people spent so much time looking at or thinking about snow.

The forest was calm now, with no more snowfall at all, but the usually gloomy, overcast weather that surrounded Youkai Academy wasn't in any hurry to melt down the storm's leftovers. Mizore figured that there would be at least several inches of snow on the ground for at least two days.

Pushing through another snow drift, Mizore suddenly stubbed her foot on something, and she promptly fell forward onto the ground.

She stayed like that for several seconds, sighing in pleasure at the freezing cold that cradled her body and wrapped around her like a blanket.

Eventually she managed to push herself up, and calmly looked behind her to see what she had tripped on.

Mizore cocked her head to the side. It was a man. A man in an Enforcer's jacket. A man in an Enforcer's jacket with long, platinum blond hair and pristine white gloves. She couldn't see his face because he was currently face-down in the snow, and it looked like he had been lying there for some time.

Mizore frowned as she rolled the sucker in her mouth from one cheek to the other. A lot of people had problems with sleeping in the snow, because apparently their bodies stopped working or something if they lost too much heat. She'd never really thought too hard about it; the whole concept seemed weird and alien to her, like contemplating what it's like to breathe underwater like a fish.

Of course, she had no reason to assume that this man was one of those beings with such a weakness, but the fact that his jacket was torn and tattered and his hair full of dust and crumbs of masonry led her to think that he might not have lost consciousness just because it was comfortable.

The fact that there was a statue of a man in a hooded cloak sticking out of the snow upside-down just a few feet away also indicated that something was definitely amiss.

Deciding on a course of action, Mizore pulled on one of the man's arms and gently turned him so that he was resting face up, and then packed the snow under his head more firmly to act as a pillow.

Her good deed done, Mizore happily trekked back into the snow drifts.

After a few more minutes, she came within sight of even more unusual ice formations, finding several massive ice stalagmites jutting out of the ground near the school building.

There was a much thinner layer of snow here, and even more oddly, there were long tracks of bare, scorched dirt that ran in zig-zags through the snow layer, including a really big patch of cracked earth in the middle.

Things became somewhat more clear once she recognized a burnt lump of flesh and hair on the edge of the battlefield as an unconscious yheti. Mizore promptly turned away from the beast and moved along, pretending she had seen nothing; yhetis were unpleasant and troublesome brutes, and she wanted nothing to do with one of them if she could help it.

On her way out however, she noticed something else interesting: an ice statue of a school girl that happened to be missing a head.

Upon a moment's inspection, she realized that it was no mere statue; this was literally a female student that had been frozen solid and then decapitated. Mizore cast a disapproving frown over toward the yheti.

Deciding that the current state of affairs once again demanded action, the snow woman gathered up the snow at her feet, and then started packing it tightly together.

After she got a good mass formed into a near-perfect sphere, she gathered a few small rocks and inserted them carefully and strategically into the sphere.

Once that was completed, she iced over the exterior, freezing moisture from the air and also on the surface of the slowly melting snow to seal it solid and ensure it would last much longer that the surrounding snowfall.

_Thwump!_ Then she stuck the sphere onto the neck of the ice statue, replacing the girl's head with a snow man head. Complete with stone eyes and a smile composed of pebbles that stretched across its face.

Mizore only wished she had a carrot to use for a nose.

Her second good deed done, Mizore happily trekked back into the snow drifts. 


	13. With Great Power Comes the Luxury Suite

"Hi everyone! It's omake time again!" Shizuka Nekonome cheered. "And I'm not getting any encyclopedia segments this chapter, so let's make it a good one!"

The nekomata smiled brightly. "Ordinarily by now we'd take a break to do a Meet the Teachers segment, but the only remaining teacher that isn't canon is Richard, and I'd rather take a bath in scalding acid than have to interview him again! Thus, we're going to once again Guess Ranma's Species!"

Shizuka slipped a card out of her pocket and checked the front. "Today our guest is... the lanky, knife-wielding former Enforcer that turns into a Netherworld lantern... Wait..."

Shizuka turned toward her guest, who was waiting patiently in a chair. "You seriously don't have a name yet? You've been in more chapters than Kuyo, a major arc villain!"

The lanky, knife-wielding former Enforcer that turns into a Netherworld lantern glared at Shizuka. "Hey, that's not my fault! I wasn't supposed to show up again after Evil Moka smoked us! And now that me and the other Netherworlders been around for so long, it'd be weird to suddenly give us names, so the author didn't bother!"

"Besides," the lantern continued, crossing his arms over his chest, "don't go comparing me to Kuyo! He lost in one hit! At least I managed to immobilize the witch once and went toe-to-toe with the busty chick! I did way better than him!"

"That's true, I guess," Shizuka admitted reluctantly. "I'd rather have to deal with a nameless loser than a huge disappointment."

"And where do you get off lecturing me for one of the writer's decisions?" The lanky Netherworlder continued angrily. "You think it's fun being constantly demeaned and smacked around for comedy relief?"

"Professor Richard seems to enjoy it," Shizuka mumbled.

"Warlocks are undead wizards!" The lantern shouted shrilly. "They don't feel pain! I had to have gourd surgery after that winged slut slashed me across the face! GOURD surgery! I'm pretty sure that wasn't even a real procedure until Miss Madaraki figured out how to fill up the gouges in my face!"

Shizuka's tail swished irritably from side to side as the tufts of hair on her head twitched. "Are you going to guess Saotome Ranma's species, or what?"

The lantern started to calm down, and once again crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, my first thought is majin, beca-"

"Majin. Got it. Great," Shizuka said as she turned away. "Is he a majin? Nope! Now let's get on with it!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: Apparently if you read this story from beginning to end all night without sleep, given for a certain level of delusional, exhausted stupor, it'll play in your head as an anime! Try it!

Key: Writing/Emphasis, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_ Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 12  
With Great Power Comes the Luxury Suite

* * *

"Me? Captain of the Enforcers? There's no way!" Tsukune said, shaking his head emphatically.

"Oh? Why not?" Hokuto asked from where he lounged in a throne high above Tsukune's head. "Didn't you want to reform the campus? Didn't you want to make the school safe?"

"I wanted to help, sure, but-" Tsukune's protest was cut off as a feminine snort came from behind him.

Keito was seated behind a table behind where the human was standing, and Tsukune noticed that the layout of the room resembled a court of law, with Hokuto in the judge's chair. Tsukune noted with considerable annoyance that Keito was seated in what would usually be the prosecutor's table.

"So you think you can upend our school's institutions, destroy our leadership and then just walk away while someone else cleans up the mess? Disgusting!"

"That's not what I'm saying!" Tsukune protested. "I'd be happy to help! I'd even join the Protection Committee! But lead it? That's ridiculous!"

At the defendant's desk, Ranma was lounging around in girl form while wearing a daring mini-skirted suit. "Don't worry so much about it, man! I've got your back!"

Tsukune turned around toward Ranma, looking even more distressed. "Ranma, you don't understand! Keeping Youkai Academy in order isn't as simple as just beating up bad guys! And even if it was, how can we police the whole school with you as the only one strong enough to stop an offender?"

Ranma blinked owlishly. "Oh. I guess I hadn't thought of all that."

"But you did, Aono!" Hokuto said brightly, clapping his hands together. "See? You do have what it takes to be a leader!"

"Objection!" Keito suddenly snarled, standing up, "why am I here as the representative of the old Enforcers anyway? Shouldn't it be Kuyo?"

"Overruled!" Hokuto shouted. "After being beaten by Saotome before he was even formally introduced, this court rules that Kuyo can't expect to be taken seriously anymore!"

As Keito cursed, Tsukune tried to organize his thoughts. "There has to be someone better! I can't lead a police squad! I have no power, no talent-"

"And yet this powerless and talentless young man organized a resistance movement that overthrew the Enforcers," Hokuto said, steepling his fingers. "Sure, others did the heavy lifting, but Saotome didn't know or care about the state of justice in the school. You are the cause of all this. You must take responsibility!"

"Take responsibility!" "Take responsibility!" Shouted the spectators that had so far managed to go completely unnoticed until now.

"Hey, Prez," Ranma said suddenly as she straightened up, "I've got an objection, too. Why am I a girl right now?"

Hokuto shrugged as he pointed the gavel at Tsukune. "Overruled! It's his dream sequence, after all."

The redhead narrowed her eyes at Tsukune. "What the hell, man?"

"Hey, don't judge me!" Tsukune snapped back. "I'm under a lot of stress right now!"

_Bang! Bang!_ "Order! Order!" Hokuto demanded as he slammed his gavel down repeatedly. "It's time to wake up!"

* * *

"Guh..." Tsukune groaned weakly as his eyes fluttered open, feeling a weariness in his body and mind as the contents of his dream lingered fresh in his mind.

Such was his exhaustion that the fact that he was once again staring into the eye-riddled, poison-fanged face of a spider as big as his head didn't even register immediately, and when it did he felt only disappointment rather than shock.

"Ranma, I thought you got all the spiders to keep to the corner of the room," Tsukune mumbled, hoping that the older boy was up already.

Ranma, who was getting dressed next to his own bed, spared his roommate a glance. "He's just bringing you your shoes. Relax."

Tsukune shifted slightly - even if he was used to the spiders, he didn't want to risk startling them - and was quite surprised to see that his shoes had been tangled up by webbing and were being dragged behind the housebroken arachnid by a thread.

"You trained them to FETCH things? Where do you find the time?" Tsukune asked in honest amazement.

"It really isn't that difficult. The little guys are really smart," Ranma explained as he patted down his shirt. "Also, I don't do homework. Anyway, ready for your first day in the Protection Committee, Captain?"

Tsukune groaned again as the giant spider, apparently deeming its task complete, severed the line of webbing to the shoes and promptly crawled off to the side of Tsukune's bed.

"Don't remind me. How on Earth did this happen?" The younger boy grumbled as he checked his shoes over and started to untangle them. "I wasn't expecting anything like this."

Ranma picked up a slip of cloth from his dresser; it was white, and boasted the kanji for "Enforcement" followed by the symbols marking him as a vice captain. "Well, if you really don't want to do it, why don't you refuse? I mean, can the prez really MAKE you take up as captain if you don't want to?"

"Believe me, I thought of that," Tsukune admitted with a sigh. "But I don't really think I could do that. After going as far as I did, and putting you and the girls and the entire FIGHT CLUB in danger, I couldn't just refuse to take responsibility for the upheaval. I just wish I could do so in a less... visible way."

Ranma smirked. "Well, that's a good attitude, at least! Here!"

Tsukune cupped his hands in front of him and caught the slip of cloth Ranma had thrown, noting that it was just like Ranma's save for the red print and the absence of the "vice" symbol.

"So how do we start?" Ranma asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Oh, and how do I get one of those neat black jackets?"

Tsukune finally got out of bed and started dressing. "Well... first we need to fill out the Committee so we can dismiss all the current Enforcers and take over their jobs as soon as possible."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "But isn't one of your main complaints that they never do their jobs?"

"Well, at least that'll make it easier," Tsukune grumbled. "But we still need as many recruits as soon as possible."

"On it," Ranma said, flashing his roommate a thumbs-up as he headed toward the door. "See you later."

"Wait, really?" Tsukune asked as he finished dressing himself. "Are you sure you can do it?" It seemed to Tsukune that appealing to people to help out the school while at the same time explicitly denying themselves the privileges and perks that used to be associated with such authority would be precisely the task that Ranma was LEAST suited for.

"No problem, man! Leave it to me!" the pigtailed boy said as he opened the door.

Ranma was reasonably surprised to see Hokuto Kaneshiro standing in the hall outside, himself looking ready to knock on their door.

"Ah! Saotome! Aono! Good morning!" Hokuto said, bowing deeply while holding a thick folder close to his chest. "You're wearing the appropriate armbands, I see. It's so good to see you jumping right into your duties in the Protection Committee!"

"Yeah, about that," Ranma said as he scratched his chin. "I've actually got a question for you, Prez. Got a minute?"

"You two go ahead," mumbled Tsukune as he walked into the bathroom, "I'm going to wash up first."

Tsukune brooded silently as he washed his face, thinking about the sudden appearance of the student council president in his dorm room.

'Isn't he being a little too enthusiastic about all this, dumping these responsibilities in my lap and now showing up at my room to make sure I get right to it? We've barely had time for the dust to settle! And he just met me yesterday, but appointed me without a second thought! What's with this guy?'

Tsukune glowered at his reflection for several seconds before he suddenly slapped his cheeks repeatedly.

'Stupid! What am I thinking? Why the heck did you do all this in the first place?'

He sighed as he started to dry his face. 'Of course he'd be excited. The student council has probably always been under the thumb of the Protection Committee, so he's probably desperate to have anyone else in power, even if he can't trust them yet. Who knows how long he's been waiting for a chance like this?'

His gaze hardened as he kept staring into the mirror, and Tsukune held up a fist.

"Maybe I've been taking this the wrong way. Isn't this a great opportunity?" he asked himself. "If someone other than me or Ranma were appointed, there's every chance that they wouldn't change a thing. Maybe I could use this chance to really turn the school around." Honestly, he wasn't sure that Ranma would be a good choice for Captain either, but would never voice such an opinion even to himself. He owed the older human far too much to judge him so hastily.

Then he glanced around at the bathroom counter. "Now, where's my toothbrush?"

A gentle creak came from the medicine cabinet as it opened up slightly, and Tsukune blinked as his toothbrush tumbled out, only to stop short in the air and dangle from a single, almost invisible thread that led back into the cabinet.

"You know, I never gave it much thought before, but these spiders could be pretty useful," Tsukune admitted as he plucked his toothbrush out of the air and carefully closed the cabinet door, "besides, this way I don't have to actually see what's in there," he said quietly to himself as he washed off his brush.

Several minutes later, Tsukune emerged from the bathroom fully refreshed to find Hokuto sitting on Ranma's bed while leafing through the papers he had brought.

"Ah, Captain Aono, have a seat," Hokuto said with a courteous smile.

"Just call me Tsukune, please," Tsukune said humbly as he moved a chair opposite the redhead and sat down, "it's a little early to have people calling me Captain."

"Ah, noble and humble. Truly a role model for the rest of the student body, to say nothing of the individuals you're actually replacing," Hokuto said, placing a hand against his chest. "I must say, Tsukune, that your actions thus far have revealed a uniquely just and bold spirit within you. I have spoken to others regarding your reputation around the school, and was quite surprised to hear that many consider you to be a tag-along to Saotome or Akashiya. You've surprised and impressed a great many people in standing up to the Protection Committee on behalf of the students that are routinely victimized, rather than for your own benefit. It is for this reason that I feel I can trust the future of the school's security to you."

Tsukune blushed badly at the student council president's approving smile. "It wasn't anything that big, really! It was my friends who did most of the work!"

"So you say. And yet, were it not for you, they never would have taken action as they did. Don't sell short your accomplishments."

As Tsukune stood in place, flushing in embarrassment, Hokuto suddenly cleared his throat. "Now, as you may have guessed, I did not come here solely to help your confidence. There is much to discuss."

Tsukune's happy blush faded as he adopted a serious expression. "I understand. What's first?"

"Well, the student council has been quite busy since the disbanding of the old Protection Committee, and has convened for an early session to pass a number of reforms to the Protection Committee's mandate and powers. We had to borrow a classroom, since we lost our old hall to a tornado, but it still went well."

"Yeah, again, I'm really sorry about that," Tsukune apologized, bowing his head. "I can't promise that he won't get into fights, but I'll try to keep Ranma from spontaneously creating natural disasters on the spot."

Hokuto smiled and nodded. "I'll leave it to you, then. As for the reforms..."

The redhead coughed into a fist as he started leafing through the folder he had brought. "I must apologize, as these are in no particular order, but gathered up as they were presented and voted on. First, the Protection Committee will no longer be allowed to finance it's official budget through any means other than through their normal administrative funding. This means that-"

"You can skip the explanations," Tsukune interrupted, massaging his forehead, "I know why you're doing this."

"Excellent!" Hokuto beamed. "Next, we'll be ending the Committee's exemptions from the class credit and attendance requirements. The office space and personnel costs allotted will henceforth be determined according to an independent review of the Committee's activities. Members of the Protection Committee will no longer enjoy free lunches. Club activities are no longer subject to review by the Protection Committee unless a formal complaint has been lodged by a student or administrator. Criticism of the Protection Committee or any other school association is no longer to be considered a capital offense..."

Tsukune waited patiently as Hokuto continued rattling off decrees that ranged from the cheap and petty to those that would have stunned Tsukune were he any less jaded to the old Enforcers' corruption and abuse.

"Excuse me, President-" Tsukune began.

"Please, call me Hokuto," Hokuto insisted. "What is it? If you really want the posters with your disapproving image looming over the students at school rallies, I suppose we could give some leeway..."

"No, no, please, get rid of them," Tsukune said quickly.

"Just as well. You don't cut nearly as intimidating a figure as Kuyo did," Hokuto admitted.

"Well, you have something more... critical in there, I assume?" Tsukune hinted. "Such as new regulations against MURDER?"

Hokuto blinked. "Ah, I see. I suppose it makes sense that you'd want to first discuss those matters that will most affect your operations directly."

Tsukune nodded eagerly as Hokuto leafed through the papers.

"Here we are. Henceforth, whenever a member of the Protection Committee executes another sentient creature - or non-sentient if that life form should be either part of our faculty or student body - they must fill out an Explanation of Termination form and submit it for the student council's official records."

Tsukune held his peace for several seconds before letting his shock show through. "What? That's IT? All we have to do is fill out some paperwork? That's outrageous!" Then he let that expression drop. "Also, we have students who aren't even sentient?"

"They mostly make up the golf club," Hokuto said, shrugging. "As for your more dramatic concern, I assure you that the paperwork is quite onerous and inconvenient. And past experiments have proven that having to fill out forms is a considerable deterrent for most monsters. Especially for those that are illiterate."

"There are illiterate students, too?" Tsukune asked in disbelief.

"Well, in the previous Protection Committee there were a few," Hokuto admitted, "they were allowed to skip classes, after all. Besides that, the number of executions carried out by the Protection Committee depends primarily on the direction and mandates of its leader. We in the council can demand accountability, but it is up to YOU to enforce order."

Tsukune straightened immediately as he once again felt the weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but it was invigorating as well as frightening.

"That said, it's of paramount importance that you keep Saotome from destroying the school with tornadoes," Hokuto said suddenly. "We understand that the pursuit of justice is rarely without conflict or difficulty, but seriously, he needs to tone it down."

Tsukune saluted firmly. "I understand, Hokuto! I'll do my best to keep the tornadoes at a minimum!"

"Excellent. I'm counting on you, Tsukune," Hokuto said with a smile, patting the younger boy's shoulder. "Shall we continue?"

"I have one other question, first," Tsukune said, "how many people are still part of the Protection Committee?"

Hokuto blinked. "Two."

"All right, that should do. Who are they?" Tsukune asked.

This time Hokuto raised an eyebrow. "You and Saotome."

A sweatdrop slowly crawled down the side of Tsukune's head. "Say what, now? Wh-What about the others?"

"They were all dismissed," Hokuto explained, his tone clearly conveying that this shouldn't be a surprise. "You and Saotome are currently the only acting members of the Protection Committee."

"But... Wait! You didn't have to fire ALL of them! I only meant that all the leaders should be removed!" Tsukune protested. "A few low-ranking guys are no threat to the new Committee! And how are we supposed to take over the Committee's duties without anybody left over to tell us about the organization?"

Hokuto shrugged. "Well, insofar as the organization primarily existed to enrich the Committee, we at the council figured it would be better to simply start from scratch."

"Seriously?" Tsukune groaned as he scrubbed his head with his hand. "This is going to be hard enough as it is!"

"Well, it's not like most of them are in any condition to help. Most of the dismissal notices are being distributed in the nurse's office," the redhead reasoned.

Tsukune paused mid-groan. "Wait. Most of them? Ranma and the girls only beat Volos, Kuyo, Jin, and that white flying dog thing. And maybe Keito might need some medical attention, but that can't amount to even half the old Enforcers. Even Haruo should be okay by now."

"Yes, well, the fight club has been very enthusiastic in picking up the slack," Hokuto said.

Tsukune was completely silent for several seconds, staring straight forward as if he wasn't even looking at Hokuto any more. "Oh. I... uh... I forgot about them."

Hokuto nodded as he started shuffling through his papers again. "Yes, well, you'll probably need to address their activities soon. This level of violence is unacceptable; even the old Committee wouldn't have tolerated this chaos. They've even been harassing the members of the student council, loitering around our offices and telling us to call for help if we want to get rid of them." Hokuto sighed as he flipped through his papers, not noticing how sweat started to drip down Tsukune's disturbingly pale face. "But anyway, there will be time for that later. Let's talk about which buildings and vehicles you can and cannot commandeer..."

* * *

"... So now we're going to build a new Protection Committee to take on the duties of protecting the school," Ranma said as he stood behind a teacher's podium, gesturing grandly with one arm like he had seen in a movie once, "and to do that we need new people! Together we'll hammer this place into shape, and protect the students from the different dangers they face at Youkai Academy, from bullies to psychotic murderers to giant spiders!"

Yukari promptly raised her hand. "Does that include the giant spider on your shoulder?"

"No!" Ranma replied immediately, idly petting the aforementioned arachnid with his non-gesturing hand. "I'm talking about the giant-er spiders that might eat something bigger than a house cat!"

As Yukari resigned herself to the continuing presence of Ranma's large, hairy pets, Moka raised her hand.

"Yes? You have a question too?" Ranma asked as he pointed to the vampiress.

"I do," Moka said, sporting an unusual expression of annoyance, "you said 'new people,' didn't you? So what is this?"

It was quite obvious what she meant; the only occupants in the classroom that Ranma was using for his recruitment, besides the martial artist himself, were Moka, Kurumu, and Yukari.

"Even if we wanted to join the Enforcers, do you really think the three of us could help you protect the school?" The vampiress asked.

"It's not just three of you," Ranma pointed out, "Mizore's spying on us from inside the broom locker."

The three girls glanced toward said locker, watching mutely as a sweatdrop rolled down the side of it.

Kurumu was the first to dismiss the stalker and voice a new question. "I've got lots of questions and concerns about all this, but I suppose first I have to ask: if you only gathered us here, why are you giving this big speech rather than just asking us?"

"Mostly for practice," Ranma admitted bluntly. "I'm not much of a speech person, so I thought I'd try it out on you guys first before I have to try and convince someone for real."

"Okay, well, then that brings us to my next concern," Kurumu grumbled, "Enforcers? Us? Are you serious?"

Ranma blinked, not having expected any resistance from the succubus. "Why not? Tsukune's the chief."

"Yeah, that's... great," Kurumu hedged, "but joining the Enforcers isn't like joining a club! Being on the Protection Committee is dangerous!"

"Especially as a certain club has been targeting the Enforcers with gusto," Moka mumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"What, the fight club? Don't worry, I'm sure Tsukune can clear that up!" Ranma said, waving a hand. "And if not, I can clear it up," he added before punching a fist into his palm.

"You see? Right there. That's the kind of thing I'm worried about," Moka said with a sigh. "Ranma, we all want to support Tsukune, and we're all proud that he managed to bring everyone together to overthrow the Enforcers, but I don't think he should make himself a target by becoming captain of the new Committee. And I believe the same concern goes for the rest of us as well. Hasn't he thought about how much danger he might be in?"

"Yeah, but it's a responsibility thing," Ranma said negligently as he shrugged, "he said he's gonna do it if he has to, and that president guy is a pretty smooth talker."

"Well, I don't care about supporting Tsukune at all, but since Senpai is vice-captain, I'll join if Moka joins!" Yukari said.

"Good!" Ranma said, slamming a fist onto the podium. "You hear that Moka? I'm counting on you!"

_'You know, this wouldn't be a problem if you would just let me out so I could throttle him,'_ grumbled Moka's inner self through the Rosario.

'Quiet, you,' Moka snapped back, in no mood to argue with herself, 'you had your chance, so settle down already.'

_'ONE FIGHT! And your little boy toy ruined it! Come on! Please? All that I'm saying is give violence a chance!'_

Kurumu scratched the back of her head uncomfortably. "Well, if Tsukune's dead-set on this then I'll join for him... but this still seems way too dangerous. Aren't we going to have to deal with violent thugs and psychos like Professor Richard and Jadeite? We have enough trouble with those two already."

"Actually, if you join up you'll probably have to deal with Professor Jadeite less than you do now," Ranma said, prompting raised eyebrows. "I asked the student president, and he says that being in the Protection Committee replaces your club membership; Committee members aren't allowed to be in clubs anymore because it interferes with their duties and stuff. Plus something called 'graft'. Not sure what that is, but the short of it is that if you join us, you'll get pulled out of the Exploration Club, and if Professor Jerk-ite doesn't like it, he can take it up with the council."

"So when do I get one of those cool long coats?" Kurumu said suddenly, her eyes gleaming as she rubbed her hands together.

"You'll be glad to know that I've already looked into this question!" Ranma said with unusual seriousness. "Unfortunately, the prez said there aren't any decent ones right now because they were all either damaged or soiled when the fight club beat the living daylights out of the current owners, but we'll definitely be ordering more!"

"Don't forget one in extra small!" Yukari said excitedly, waving a hand in the air.

"Now that I think about it, protecting the innocent students of this school is definitely worth more risk than helping Professor Jadeite capture magic weapons," Moka said suddenly, only looking slightly embarrassed about the quick change in attitude, "and I'd hate for Tsukune to have to bear so much of the burden on his own."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Ranma mumbled as he made for the classroom door, "or during the day, I guess. Vampires sleep during the day, don't they?"

Moka blinked. "I don't."

Kurumu snorted as she leaned over toward the broom locker. "Worst vampire EVER."

The locker wiggled slightly in response, doing its best approximation of a nod.

* * *

"Together we'll hammer this place into shape, and protect the students from the different dangers they face at Youkai Academy, from bullies to psychotic murderers to giant spiders!" Ranma said, pumping a fist into the air. "But not the spider on my shoulder!"

Kana sweatdropped from where she was listening patiently to Ranma's appeal, and then glanced left and right at the empty hallway they occupied.

"Did you... practice that speech... ahead of time?" Kana mumbled, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. It was fairly obvious, since Ranma rarely spoke with so much drama and purpose.

"Was it no good? I already pitched it to the others and they didn't seem to like it, but I'm not good at this sort thing. I still got them to sign up though, so I thought I'd keep trying it."

Kana glanced off to the side, clearly trying to avoid eye contact.

"Ah, that bad, huh?" Ranma asked as he rubbed the back of his head.

"No... Not really..." Kana hedged. "But... I don't really want to... join the Protection Committee..." She whispered as Ranma leaned in to hear her.

"Are you sure?" Ranma asked, clearly disappointed. "I mean, are you that fond of your current club? You'll have to leave it, you know."

Kana shrugged.

Ranma sighed as he recognized that he wasn't making any progress against Kana's reservations. "All right, I just thought I'd ask. Never mind."

Then he turned around and knocked on the door to a utility closet. "Hey, Mizore, what about you? You didn't say before whether you wanted to join or not."

A vein popped up on Kana's head as the closet door cracked open slightly.

"I'm okay with it..." the snow woman said quietly, peeking out not at Ranma, but instead at Kana nearby.

"Then you'll join? Thanks! That's a huge help!" Ranma said happily, reaching into the closet and rubbing Mizore's head affectionately. "We really need to fill out a roster quick, or this whole Protection Committee thing could be a real mess."

As a blush and slight smile grew on Mizore's face, Kana's twisted into a scowl.

"You owe me a favor, right?" the siren said suddenly, startling Ranma with her perfectly audible, melodic voice.

"R-Right, I do, don't I?" Ranma asked, looking surprised at the sudden change in tone. "Did you want something?"

"Not yet, no," Kana said thoughtfully as she ran a hand through her long, dark purple hair, "but if I join, then you'll owe me two, okay?"

Ranma was once again surprised by the sudden shift in attitude, although he supposed he shouldn't have been; Kana was definitely more aggressive and hot-tempered whenever Mizore was around.

"Okay, sure! Whatever you want!" Ranma said happily, giving the siren a thumbs-up. "Thanks a lot, Kana! I've gotta go find more people to join up!"

Mizore poked her head further into the hall as Ranma dashed off, watching him leave before she turned toward Kana, who was glaring at her silently.

"You know... I help him out WITHOUT extorting favors from him..." the snow woman said with a disapproving frown.

Kana snorted as she turned on her heel. "And that's why you'll lose, Frosty," she said simply as she stalked away. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to write a resignation letter to the music club."

Mizore said nothing as she watched her rival stalk away, and then slowly pulled herself back into the closet.

* * *

"Together we'll hammer this place into shape, and protect the students from the different dangers they face at Youkai Academy, from bullies to psychotic murderers to giant spiders!" Ranma said, pumping a fist into the air.

Chopper Rikishi raised an eyebrow as he pointed to Ranma's shoulder.

"No, not this one. The kind that eats people," Ranma added with far less enthusiasm. "Why does everybody think my spiders need to be stopped?"

"Well, they are kinda all over the place. And I heard that some people have lost pets and familiars n' such," the wrestler reasoned, shrugging. "But you mean that huge spider that jumped the Enforcer dude a while back, right? I've kinda been wondering where it got off to. Might be interesting to take it down."

"Exactly! We need to stop the Boss Spider before it goes and hurts someone who doesn't deserve it!" Ranma said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "So join up with the Protection Committee, and you'll get to fight it!"

Chopper rubbed his massive chin for a few seconds. "So, what's stopping me from just finding Boss Spider and squashing it on my own!"

"Absolutely nothing!" Ranma said with largely unnecessary energy and passion.

Chopper frowned. "So why should I join up with a group and follow your orders?"

Ranma was silent for a few seconds. "Well... you'll get to fight a lot of enemies, not just Boss Spider!"

"And what'll stop me from doing that on my own?" Chopper asked, crossing his thickly muscled arms over his chest.

"The Protection Committee, of course!" Ranma said, his eyes narrowing.

"So if I don't join, I can still fight spiders and random enemies, plus the Committee?" Chopper asked, smiling.

Ranma once again fell silent for several seconds. "You know, they told me that trolls weren't supposed to be this smart."

Chopper shrugged. "I managed to get into high school, didn't I?"

Ranma clicked his tongue as he turned away. "Well, that's the third failure in a row. I guess it's time to improvise again."

He turned backed toward Chopper, who was checking a sports watch and generally looking bored.

"All right, so you don't want to join the Protection Committee, huh?"

"Not really, no," the troll admitted.

Ranma put up his fists. "Then let's fight over it!"

Chopper's expression brightened instantly. "Okay!"

* * *

"All right, you clowns! Get it together!" Riza Wildman shouted to the sparse gathering of students in the gym as they exercised and sparred with each other. "Don't get so full of yourselves just because you managed to beat down those stuffy losers that disgrace our campus as its defenders! I wants to see you in top shape to hold that territory, you hear?"

"Yes, Miss Wildman!" several of the students shouted. Many of them sported obvious injuries, such as bandaged arms and gauze pads, but they still pounded away at punching bags and training dummies without complaint.

"Hey, Miss Wildman!" a girl who Riza had nicknamed "Sting" said as she saw someone entering the gym. "Saotome's back!"

"What in the sixth circle happened to you?" Kouma asked as Ranma approached him with an obvious limp and a large bruise on his cheek.

"Just doing a little recruiting for the new Protection Committee," Ranma said, brushing at his cheek as if it was nothing, "I just became its vice captain, and now Tsukune's the captain."

This took Kouma by surprise, and he wasn't the only one.

"Whoa, Human, you serious? You're one of the stuffy losers that disgrace our campus as its defenders?" Riza asked as she approached the pair, causing Kouma to straighten ever so slightly.

As Ranma was working out an appropriately sarcastic response to that, the redhead suddenly laughed and smacked him on the back. "Ha! That's a riot! Looks like you're moving up in the world, huh?"

Ranma staggered a bit from the friendly gesture, silently marveling at Riza's fantastic strength and the way it seemed to rattle all the spinal damage Chopper had managed to inflict before the troll had been sent to the nurse's office with his arms swinging limply from his shoulders again.

"Yeah, so, I need to tell you that I won't be in the fight club any longer," Ranma mumbled, cracking his back as he winced, "this counts as my club activity from now on. It's been fun and all, but Tsukune needs me to back him up."

Riza nodded, still smirking. "I gotcha. It's too bad; with you around this lot didn't seem quite so shoddy. But, you gotta do watcha gotta do."

Ranma nodded, thankful that Riza was taking his resignation so well. "Also, I was hoping that since me and Tsukune are running the Enforcers now, that you'd stop the campaign of terror against the school in general and the Protection Committee in particular," he added.

"Not gonna happen," Riza deadpanned, "we'll destroy your pitiful little band of peacekeepers, and hang your sissy of a leader on the flagpole as a warning to others."

Ranma shrugged. "Well, I thought I might as well ask. I'll see you again when I arrive to defeat you all for peace and justice and stuff."

"Okay. Thanks for all your hard work," Riza said seriously as the two fighters shared a curiously professional handshake.

Kouma was silent through the entire exchange, his mind racing the whole while.

Honestly, he wasn't sure how to feel about this turn of events. Him and Ranma were partners, or at least they were supposed to be. He held a deep though grudging respect for the pigtailed boy, had shared some of his more melodramatic secrets with him, and had even asked to learn from him. The idea that they would suddenly be enemies weighed far heavier on his shoulders than it apparently did on Riza's, and the thought that he would never get to fight alongside Ranma again made him wonder about all the opportunities he would miss due to this whimsical twist of fate.

But then, on the other hand, he would never have to put up with Ranma again, which was FANTASTIC.

"Hey, Kouma," Ranma said hesitantly, startling the hellhound out of his thoughts from the shock that Ranma was using his actual name.

"What? You have something to say before you leave?" Kouma asked, his tone wavering agonizingly between bitter and gleeful.

"Well, uh..." Ranma trailed off as he rubbed the back of his head. "I had this whole speech planned out for the recruitment thing, but it hasn't helped so far so I'll just ask you normally: would you consider-"

"Joining the Protection Committee?" Kouma asked, unable to hide the snarl of contempt at the end of his question. "Not gonna happen Saotome, and you didn't have to ask to know that." He crossed his arms over his chest as his eyes narrowed at the other fighter. "My place is here. Go ahead and leave on your own."

Ranma sighed and was about to do just that when he sensed a sudden rise in tension around him.

"You know, Eyebrows, I was actually coming close to respecting you a little bit,," Riza said suddenly, her voice hot and condescending.

Kouma's cold-and-serious facade crumbled like a sandcastle under a steamroller. "Wh-What?"

Riza's clenched teeth revealed thick, pointed canines as she glared harder at the hellhound, and Ranma was acutely aware of Kouma's tail appearing just so it could hang between his legs embarrassingly.

"Are you seriously abandoning him just like that? Is that all your partnership meant to you?" Riza demanded, leaning forward into Kouma's face as he started leaning backward.

"But he's the one abandoni-"

"Shut it! No more excuses!" Riza growled as Kouma flinched back. "I was willing to overlook the fact that the Human apparently had to take down the Enforcer's leadership by himself because you were busy dilly-dallying, but this is just too disappointing! He's your partner! You two have fought and bled together! I thought you damned dogs were supposed to be loyal!"

Kouma trembled at Riza's verbal barrage, feeling himself shrinking before her accusations of weakness and failure. Of course, putting aside the fact that it was Ranma who was leaving him rather than the other way around, Kouma simply had someone in the fight club to whom he felt much greater loyalty than to the cursed human.

But explaining that would be SO embarrassing!

"But it wasn't like that! I was busy fighting off a high-level Enforcer too! He was really tough to beat!" Kouma tried desperately, trying to at least throw off any accusation of being ineffectual.

"That's true," Ranma confirmed, raising his hand, "if not for him, Kurumu and the others would be crushed ice now."

Kouma saw Riza's expression waver as she considered this, and at once felt considerable gratitude that Ranma was willing to stand up for him, mixed with hot envy that Riza clearly valued Ranma's opinion so much more than his.

"Yeah, I crushed that damned yheti!" Kouma said, standing up straight as he gripped his hand into a fist. "And damn near opened up a new volcano in the forest doing it!"

Sting suddenly raised her hand. "I heard that Saotome beat the old Enforcer captain by throwing a tornado at him."

"That is also true," Ranma said, nodding sagely, "and, as implied, way cooler than what Kouma did."

"Cheh!" Riza clicked her tongue as she shook her head sadly. "Human, take care of the idiot, will you? I know he may not be worth much in a scrap, but you'll need all the help you can get when we arrive at your doorstep to beat you down! And maybe under your wing he'll actually improve a little!"

Kouma started to whimper pitifully.

"Well, I was kinda hoping he'd actually join us of his own free will and everything, but since you're pretty much handing him to me..." Ranma clapped a hand on the hellhound's shoulder. "Welcome to the Protection Committee, buddy!"

"How did things turn out like this?" Kouma asked, his voice a choked whisper as Ranma started to drag him away.

"Apparently it's because I'm awesome," Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders as if it were meaningless. "Come on, let's go meet up with Tsukune!"

* * *

"Tsukune! I'm back!" Ranma called as he entered their shared dorm room, still dragging along Kouma by the back of his shirt. "I got those recruits you wanted!"

Tsukune looked up from where he was looking over some papers, being flanked by Kurumu, who was trying to feed him cookies, and Moka, who looked like she was trying, against great temptation, not to bite into Tsukune's neck.

Yukari was in the room as well, lying on Ranma's bed while flipping through a large book titled "How to Summon Friends and Dominate People".

"Senpai! Did you find... Uh..." Yukari trailed off as she quickly rearranged her immediate questions by order of urgency. "Why is Gamaroshi crying?"

"I think one of his dreams just died," Ranma said without actually explaining anything as he propped the hellhound up in a chair.

"You mean the dream of beating you and becoming champion of the fight club?" Kurumu asked as she tried to push Moka away from Tsukune's neck.

"That too," the pigtailed boy mumbled. "He'll get over it. The important thing is that he's now a member of the Protection Committee!"

Yukari smirked. "That'll teach the dumb pup to have a life that doesn't revolve around Senpai," she said under her breath.

"Well, every member helps," Tsukune said as he wearily pushed away the stack of papers he had been given by Hokuto. "We should draw up some posters to advertise for more recruits too." He seemed largely oblivious to the scuffle going on behind him as Kurumu practically wrestled Moka to the floor to keep the vampiress from touching him.

"Good idea. Where do we get paper and stuff?" Ranma asked.

"They probably have everything we need in the Protection Committee's main offices," Yukari volunteered, "and we should head over there to check them out and make sure they're secure anyway. Plus I want to claim my room early."

"Yukari..." Tsukune muttered with a sweatdrop on his head, "we're not in this for the power and the perks, remember? If we're going to form a new Protection Committee, we're going to do it right and make this school a safe and productive establishment!"

"From the comfort of our lavishly furnished offices!" Yukari cheered, shutting her book in front of her as she thrust a fist into the air.

"Seconded!" Ranma said, high-fiving the young witch.

Tsukune sighed, but inwardly he was relieved that his friends were so enthusiastic. None of them had expected this turn of events and, with the possible exception of Ranma, none of them were keen on shouldering the responsibility that the Enforcers had so callously neglected. Keeping his friends on-task and under control would be a burden, but he'd rather have to rein them in than try and prod them to action.

"Well, I suppose we should have a look. Let's go and-" Tsukune was cut off as Moka suddenly leapt up from the floor and sunk her fangs into his neck.

"Damn it, Moka! Let him go!" Kurumu shouted angrily, grabbing her around her forehead and trying to pry her off. "There has got to be a rule against this!" the succubus growled.

"Well, oddly enough, there are rules specifically forbidding cannibalism," Yukari noted, "but seeing how it's only cannibalism if both victim and perpetrator are the same species..."

Tsukune gasped as Moka finally released him, his face pale. "M-Moka, don't do that so suddenly," he stammered.

"You shouldn't do that at all! What if you hurt him permanently?" Kurumu demanded.

Moka flushed as Kurumu glared at her. "Sorry! But it's been a while, you know..."

"Oi! If you lovebirds are done necking, can we go now?" Ranma asked, looking annoyed as Moka and Tsukune looked embarrassed.

"Do they really do that all the time?" Kouma asked Ranma suddenly, apparently snapping out of his depression far enough to make snide remarks. "That's disgusting. It's like watching someone make out, eat, and kill at the same time."

"I know, right?" Ranma muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "At least save it for when you're alone."

"All right, all right, that's enough," Tsukune said in what he hoped was an authoritative tone, despite his face being a bright red (which, when combined with the recent blood loss, was making him feel a bit dizzy), "if Kouma has recovered enough psychologically to come with us, we should get going."

"Yeah, I've pretty much resigned myself," the hellhound admitted wearily as he stood up. "Let's go."

* * *

"So Ranma, did you recruit anyone besides Kouma and the girls?" Tsukune asked as the newly formed Protection Committee walked toward their new offices.

"Yeah. I got Mizore and Kana and Chopper Rikishi, too. That gives us a hefty nine people!" Ranma said proudly.

Tsukune blinked as he went through those names. "Wait... Ranma, except for Rikishi, those are all friends of ours!"

"No, it's not like that," Ranma insisted, "me and Chopper are pretty good friends, too."

Tsukune rolled his eyes. "Ranma, we can't just fill positions of authority with our friends. That's favoritism."

"Actually, it's more accurate to call it cronyism," Yukari piped up. "It better describes the internal power network that keeps itself in charge while denying outsiders, and implies that loyalty is more important than competence."

Ranma mulled that over for a moment. "So what's your point?"

"No point. Just reminding everyone that I'm a genius!" Yukari said brightly, making a "V" with her fingers.

"We WOULD forget pretty quickly if she weren't so annoying," Kurumu mumbled.

"Well, be that as it may, it's still a bad thing," Tsukune insisted, "we need to have people that we don't have a personal connection with."

"Well, aside from the poster idea, how are we gonna do that?" Ranma asked as he moved ahead to open the door to the main lobby of the Protection Committee. "It's not like people are clamo-mo-mo-moaaaaaaAAAARGH!"

Everyone present was shocked to hear such a wail of terror come from Ranma's mouth, and each one of them froze in place behind the gibbering martial artist as they tried to imagine what kind of deadly horror had infiltrated their new office ahead of them.

Tsukune was the first to remember that Ranma only seemed scared or wary of people and things that didn't frighten anybody else, and bravely ducked under the older boy's arm to see what was in the room.

"GYAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAH! HYAAAAAAAAH!" Ranma continued screaming as he remained rooted in place, blocking everyone else's view of the lobby. It didn't escape their attention, though, that Tsukune hadn't joined him.

"Ranma, calm down, please," the younger boy said suddenly.

Ranma promptly did so, gasping painfully for breath as his eyes remained locked on something in the lobby.

As Tsukune had expected, it was nothing that would have frightened anybody else, though he recognized that this didn't necessarily make it safe.

But still, why all the fuss about some cute elven girl?

She was short, only about half a head taller than Yukari, with chocolate brown skin and long, sharply pointed ears. Despite her height she had a good bust and hip line, though Kurumu certainly wasn't impressed once she and the others finally shouldered their way past Ranma to see what all the fuss was about.

The elf, for her part, simply remained silent throughout the debacle with a bemused expression on her face, obviously waiting for the moment of panic and confusion to pass so that they could start with the obvious questions.

Tsukune didn't disappoint. "I'm really sorry about that; he usually doesn't react like that to... Well, anyone except our homeroom teacher, I guess. My name is Aono Tsukune. And you are...?" She looked vaguely familiar, but he certainly didn't remember ever speaking to her or being introduced.

The girl's lip twitched into something approaching a smile, though she was obviously still put off by Ranma's reaction. "Well, my real name-"

"TOBAKI!" Ranma suddenly yelled, panicking once again as he tried to keep the dark elf from mentally scarring his friends. "Her name is Tobaki! We've... met before."

"You've 'met'? What happened at this 'meeting' to make you scream like that?" Kurumu asked, observing Tobaki closely for any clues.

Ranma simply shuddered as Tobaki coughed into her fist.

"I would prefer that be left between us, actually," Tobaki grumbled bitterly. "As for why I'm here-"

"Whoa, wait, no," Kouma said suddenly as he stepped forward, eyebrows climbing, "you're not sweeping that reaction under the rug. Just what kind of monster could cause Saotome to..." He stopped speaking as he sniffed the air suddenly, and his brow furrowed as he took several more sniffs. "Hey, what's that smell?"

Tobaki quirked an eyebrow. "Does it smell like blood and raw meat?"

"Half the damn school always smells like that," Kouma mumbled as he continued to sniff at the air, stepping closer to Tobaki, "no, this smells more... wrong. Like, maybe-"

He stopped speaking once he realized that he was now standing right over Tobaki, who was staring up at him blankly.

_Sniff! Sniff! Sniff!_

Then he cringed, and slowly crept backwards toward Ranma (who was still standing stock-still in the doorway and sweating).

"Ah. I see," the hellhound said, clearly nervous as he stood rigidly next to Ranma and tried not to make eye contact with their new acquaintance. "Well, carry on. I'll just be over here out of tentacle range."

'Out of what?' Tsukune thought briefly before he decided to just move on with finding out why the girl was here. "I'm sorry, you were going to explain why you were here?"

Tobaki sighed. "Right. You're the new Captain of the Protection Committee, right? I'm the committee treasurer. As Vice-Captain Saotome said, you can call me Tobaki."

"Ah, I see," Tsukune mumbled as he nodded, "then I guess you haven't heard. The old Protection Committee has been completely disbanded."

"No, I heard," Tobaki said. "A member of the student council stopped by earlier to hand me a formal dismissal notice. Which means there's an opening now, I suppose."

"Right. Yukari, would you like to be treasurer?" Tsukune asked, turning to the young witch. "I figure since-"

"No, I'm treasurer," Tobaki said, her tone now more insistent.

Moka shared Tsukune's look of confusion and exasperation. "But you just said there was an opening," she replied.

"There is. On the student council board," Tobaki explained.

As Tsukune's suspicion slowly turned to horror, the dark-skinned elf took out some papers from her book bag and handed them to Tsukune. "I also heard that we have to fill these out now whenever we kill someone, so here's a completed termination explanation form, or T-2 form, for your approval."

"I'm not going to approve this!" Tsukune shouted, his patience breaking as he snatched away the papers and then flung them over his shoulder. "You're telling me you actually killed a member of the student council just for doing his job?"

Tobaki jumped back in surprise, apparently not expecting a reprimand. "Yes. So? I filled out all the necessary paperwork..."

"That's not the point!" Tsukune growled. "Forget it! I'm dismissing you myself, then! That's within my authority, right?"

Ranma flinched at this, and more sweat started beading on his forehead.

Tobaki, meanwhile, did not look amused at the suggestion. "I refuse your dismissal. I like my job."

"You can't just... I mean, my authority has..." As he floundered for several seconds, Kurumu silently came up behind him and rubbed his back encouragingly, helping soothe his frustration.

"Fine then. Ranma? Can you-" Tsukune started to say before the pigtailed boy suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him away from Kurumu.

When the two roommates made eye contact, Tsukune was shocked to see real desperation in Ranma's eyes as the older boy spoke.

"Look, Tsukune, I don't do this often, but can I call in a favor? Or, like, ALL the favors from the stuff I've done for you?" Ranma whispered, despite the fact that they were right next to everyone and everyone could hear them. "I know that you're really mad at her, and you're right! Totally right! But PLEASE don't make me fight her."

"Putting aside whether we can or should remove her by force," Yukari added, "wouldn't keeping her on solve your earlier complaints about all the current members being our friends and there being no one from the old committee to help us start off?"

"How are we going to explain this to the student council?" Tsukune asked, clearly frustrated by the idea.

"I believe the box on the T-2 form asking for 'justification of execution order' should take care of everything," Tobaki said, crossing her arms under her breasts. "I really don't see what the problem is, here."

Tsukune spent considerable effort in holding back a scathing rebuke, and felt queasy as he considered Yukari's proposition. From what he could tell, the only thing that made him a desirable leader was his grasp of right and wrong and concern for others, and the very last thing he wanted was to start off his tenure as captain by letting someone who was supposed to be his subordinate get away with murder.

Swallowing his guilt, and a fair amount of bile, the young human narrowed his eyes at the confused elven girl. "Okay... Tobaki... If - and this is a BIG 'if' - you stay on the Protection Committee, you're going to follow my and Ranma's orders, got it? And you won't be getting away with this scot-free either. I won't let you run around doing as you please."

"That's right! You tell her, Tsukune!" Kurumu shouted, playing cheerleader as usual.

"That's right! Everyone has to be accountable for their crimes!" Moka chimed in.

Tobaki, for her part, looked completely lost. "Of course I'd follow your orders. You're the captain, aren't you?" Then her own gaze hardened. "Of course, if I were dismissed, then I wouldn't be part of the Protection Committee, and then everything I did after that would be in the capacity of a rogue student, not a subordinate. You understand that much, right CAPTAIN?"

Tsukune felt a bit of his recently discovered backbone melt away at the cold stare he was getting from the elven girl, but he stood firm as he continued. "Good. So here's my first order: from now on, NO KILLING."

Although Ranma and the girls more familiar with Tsukune's personality weren't surprised by the ruling, Tobaki was stunned and Kouma looked taken aback.

"What? Do you mean no killing for personal gain, or-" the hellhound started to ask before Tsukune cut him off.

"I mean no killing at all," Tsukune clarified firmly. "There might come a time, MAYBE, when you find yourself in a situation where you have absolutely no choice but to kill someone in order to save yourself or someone else, and when and if that happens I'll give you a chance to explain yourself. But until that happens, nobody takes a life, understand?"

Tobaki was still obviously shocked by the demand, and the sincerity of her surprise left Tsukune unsure whether he should be more horrified by the circumstances or less.

After a few seconds though, she held up her hands. "All right, fine. So you have a problem with murder. Sorry. I didn't know. I can't read your mind."

She seemed to stop and think about that last statement. "At least, I can't read your mind without tearing your soul out and stripping your thoughts one by one. Which is a rather gruesome and permanent measure to take just to be able to predict your edicts."

As the others were busy trying to think of something to say to that, Ranma snapped his fingers. "Ah. That reminds me. I should remove that body right away. In Professor Richard's class they can start to stink pretty quickly. And sometimes their souls escape and start bugging the psychics. Eyebrows, can you gimme a hand?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kouma grumbled as he withdrew a bandanna from his pocket and wrapped it around his face to cover his nose.

"Oh, that's very considerate of you!" Tobaki said brightly, pointing behind her. "It's in the second room on the left."

As Ranma and Kouma quickly scurried away to their unwholesome task, eager to leave the presence of the sprightly abomination, said abomination turned back to Tsukune.

"Well, I can already see that I'm going to like this new committee," she said with curious satisfaction. "I swear, the old guys were so lazy, they'd just leave the corpses of their hapless victims just sitting out in the open. And then I would have to budget a janitor to clean them up. It's like they have no idea how much union labor costs!"

Moka, Kurumu, and Yukari all stared in morbid fascination as they witnessed the unusual sight of Tsukune slowly boiling over with barely contained disgust and fury.

"And sometimes the morons didn't even loot the bodies first! Once Haruo actually ordered ME to do it and bring his cut to him! What does he think a treasurer's job is?"

"Tsukune, it's okay," Kurumu said with deep concern as she started giving her quaking beloved a shoulder rub, "everything's going to be fine from here on, all right? You can fix this! We all believe in you!"

"BY SATAN'S CURSED GOATEE, WHAT DID YOU DO TO THIS MAN?" Kouma suddenly screamed from down the hall.

"Aw, are you serious? It's everywhere! At least Professor Richard keeps the mess small!" Ranma complained.

Tobaki flushed as the other girls took a wary step back from her. "What? I was going to clean up! That paperwork is time-consuming, you know!"

"Excuse me," Tsukune said sharply, pulling away from Kurumu and stepping past their new (or old, depending on how you look at it) member without a backward glance, "I have something to discuss with the Vice-Captain."

"Well, I hope it has to do with ordering more of the Committee's trademark long coats," Tobaki said as her superior stalked off, "I need a new one. I don't know what kind of blood that guy had, but it does NOT wash out."

"You know, you should really stop talking like that if you want to keep your position," Kurumu said, planting her hands on her shapely hips.

"Talking like what?" The dark-skinned girl asked, perplexed. "Does he have some other pet peeve I should know about?"

"No, actually, it's the same one, but you keep aggravating it," Moka explained, herself looking more than a little disturbed. "Tsukune is a kind and sensitive person, and doesn't like to see or hear about people getting hurt. Nor do the rest of us, for that matter."

'Internal company excluded, of course,' Moka thought with some bitterness.

_'Was that sarcasm? That was sarcasm, wasn't it? That's rude, you know,'_ her inner self responded indignantly.

"Seriously? I'm sorry, I had no idea," Tobaki said, flushing and looking honestly embarrassed. "I'm really sorry, I'm a bit helpless when it comes to reading the mood..."

"No, no, this isn't about the mood, it's about murder," Kurumu started to protest before Yukari cut her off.

"Whatever, I want to hear what happened between you and Senpai!" The young witch demanded. "What did you do to make him so frightened of you?"

Tobaki flushed even darker, which the girls would have considered irresistibly cute if they weren't all horrified and/or repulsed by the demon posing as an awkward elven girl.

"Do I... have to say it?" Tobaki asked timidly, a tear welling in the corner of her eye. "It's really embarrassing... and painful."

Moka's first thought was to ask if Ranma had done something horrible to her, but she quashed it before it had a chance to escape her mouth; Tobaki had already confessed to casual murder and theft, and had assisted massive quantities of both that were committed by others. Ranma could definitely be offered the benefit of the doubt in this case.

"Well now I REALLY wanna hear," Kurumu said, her expression trying to show concern while failing to disguise anticipation. "Come on! Tell us!"

Tobaki sniffled as she wiped away a few stray tears. "Well, the first time we met... I... tried to take him." She sniffled again, her emotions threatening to flood out like a burst dam.

The other three girls were stunned.

"Tried to... take him?" Moka squeaked. "You mean, like-"

"Yes," Tobaki interrupted, her sniffles building up in light sobs. "And he... _Hic!_ He... He got away!" she finally admitted, tears pouring freely down her chocolate-colored cheeks.

Moka staggered backward, her face pale. "I... I think I need to sit down. In a different room. Far away," the vampiress said, quickly walking out the front door.

"I'll join you," Kurumu mumbled as she scurried after her friend and rival, casting only the barest of a glance over her shoulder at their horrific new acquaintance.

Tobaki continued sniffling as Yukari watched the others leave silently.

"What? It was really painful!" Tobaki insisted, wondering why the taller girls were leaving so quickly. "He can punch at the speed of sound, you know?"

This didn't seem to warrant a response from Moka and Kurumu, who if anything sped their flight from Tobaki's presence.

Yukari, however, seemed entirely undisturbed by the revelation, and merely waited until she was sure that nobody else was in earshot before she crept up to the sniffling dark elf. "So... how far did you get?"

* * *

_Fwoof!_ Kouma blasted a thin stream of flames from his mouth and swept them over the piles of torn flesh and oozing ichor on the floor, each clump lighting aflame instantly and quickly burning down into a drier, more sanitary form.

After several seconds, waiting until the flames threatened to spread across the carpet, Kouma then unleashed another blast, this one from the fire extinguisher he was carrying, dousing the sparse fires instantly.

"Yeesh, this guy is EVERYWHERE. Whatever he was, what he lacked in power he made up for in mass," grumbled the hellhound as he sucked up air to purify another pile of corpse.

Ranma was behind him, gingerly sweeping up the ash and burnt flesh with a broom and dustpan. "Actually, I think a fair bit of this is Tobaki. A lot of that yellow sludge comes off when she's on the attack."

Both fighters shuddered briefly at the imagery (or in Ranma's case, the memory) at about the same time that Tsukune entered the room and calmly shut the door behind him.

"Ranma, can we tal-WHOA! What is that smell?" The younger human gasped, clamping his hands over his nose.

"It's mostly raw, undiluted hate," Kouma explained as he blasted another small blaze with the extinguisher, "the rest is just burning flesh. You'll be fine if you don't breathe too deeply."

"Hey Eyebrows, didn't you say you used to live in Hell? Is this sort of thing normal to you?" Ranma asked while Tsukune got his breath back.

"No way. Hell has devils, not demons. Psychotic freaks like her are on a whole other level of violent," the hellhound explained before he moved to the next mess.

"Ranma, we need to talk about this," Tsukune managed to mumble once he felt like his lungs weren't trying to suddenly breathe needles rather than air, "you can't be serious about wanting that Tobaki girl on the team."

Ranma immediately whirled around. "Whoa, hold it, I didn't say nothing about wanting her around! I don't want anything to do with her! But I NEVER want to fight her again!"

"But Ranma, if-" Tsukune suddenly trailed off, "wait, fight her 'again'? You two have fought?"

Ranma, surprisingly, fell silent briefly as he looked away uncomfortably. "Well... Uh... I was fighting, anyway. Not sure about her."

"Please, don't," Kouma grumbled. "Normally I really enjoy Saotome's embarrassing stories, but let's leave this one alone, okay? There are things even a denizen of Hell doesn't want to hear about."

Seeing Ranma nod rapidly, Tsukune finally forced himself to abandon his curiosity. "All right, fine. We'll leave that part alone. But as for her joining, or rather, remaining on, the Committee..." The younger human bit his lip as he considered how to make his next point. "Well, to be perfectly honest, I'd rather have the old Captain, Kuyo with us than this girl. At least we know that you can keep him in line if you need to."

"I totally agree," Ranma said as he started sweeping again, "but I wouldn't say that to Tobaki's face, much less try to replace her."

As Tsukune stewed silently, Kouma spoke up again. "Can't YOU do something about it?"

Tsukune gave him an annoyed glance. "Like what?"

Kouma gazed up at the ceiling as he leaned back against a wall, deep in thought. "Well... You seem pretty well-versed in acting like a human, so-"

"No, he is a human," Ranma said suddenly.

"GAAAH! I told you to stop telling people that!" Tsukune shouted.

Kouma looked confused, but was apparently unbothered by the fact. "Really? Weird. Anyway, you might have a good grasp of morals because you grew up with them, and I know right from wrong because I grew up constantly viewing the endless torment that people suffer because of their sins. But people like Tobaki and Saotome don't, because they grew up in a pit of abyssal ooze containing nothing but rage and malice manifest. More than not knowing right from wrong, they don't even realize there IS a right or wrong."

Ranma nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I mean, it's not like-HEY!" He suddenly turned on the hellhound, slapping Kouma over the head with the broom handle. "Don't box me in with that freak! I'm a human! And a heroic one at that!"

"Pft. Whatever," Kouma mumbled as he swatted the broom away. "I must have missed the class where we learn all about how humans can make tornadoes."

"It's not like I do it all the time..." Ranma protested bitterly.

"Putting aside spontaneous tornado-making," Tsukune said, trying to interject and hopefully stop the brewing argument, "do you really think I can teach her not to be evil?"

Kouma shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really know, but so long as she says she'll listen to you, you may as well try. Frankly it's surprising that she even recognizes things like rules and hierarchy, so she's probably a lot more reasonable than most demons."

Tsukune mulled that over briefly. "So... she's a demon? Not an elf?"

Ranma and Kouma both shuddered. "DEFINITELY not an elf," they said in unison.

"Well, all right!" Tsukune said, his earlier frustration now replaced by hope and determination. "If the new Protection Committee is going to maintain actual law and order around here, actually defining law and order isn't a bad place to start! We'll teach Tobaki and anyone else who needs it exactly where the line between right and wrong lies!"

"Yeah, good luck with that," Kouma said before he turned around and spat a jet of flame onto the last filth pile.

"I need to go write up a plan," Tsukune said as he walked out, "Ranma, I'll leave the posters to you! See you tonight!"

Kouma glanced behind him as Tsukune walked out, and then shook his head as soon as the new captain was out of earshot. "Only a human would try to reform a walking pile of malevolent sludge. Poor sap's gonna get himself eaten."

Ranma frowned as he swept up the last ash pile. "It was your idea."

"I just wanted him to stop whining," Kouma admitted. "Besides, my definition of reform involves pits of hot coals, rusted barbs and whatnot."

Then the hellhound looked more concerned. "But putting our treasurer aside, it kind of worries me that the captain's a real human."

"So am I," Ranma pointed out fruitlessly.

"I said a REAL human," Kouma reiterated. "I mean, it's great to have the real thing around for reference, but how does he think he's going to be able to act as an authority figure?"

"That's where you and I come in," Ranma said, thumping his chest, "Tsukune's good for dealing with rules and keeping order and all that touchy-feely stuff, but we're the ones who have to crack heads."

"Granted," Kouma mumbled, "but have you really considered what it means to have a human in charge here? Humans don't really belong here to begin with, but having one in power is a whole different issue. It doesn't really bother me so much, since I'm used to dealing with them, but it's hard to imagine this turning out well, what with the completely different moral values and the possibility that he could be gutted at a moment's notice."

Kouma glanced at Ranma for a reaction, but saw that the martial artist was just glaring at him.

"I'm a human too! Stop talking about us like there isn't one standing right in front of you!" Ranma demanded.

Kouma rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm starting to think you're serious about that."

"I am serious!" Ranma insisted, hoping that his insistence was finally getting through to the hellhound.

"So you have some kind of brain damage or memory alteration that makes you think you're a human?" Kouma asked, "do you really not know your true form? Or is that 'curse' actually-"

"GRAAAAAAAH!" Ranma immediately broke the broom over his knee as Kouma flinched back.

"All right, fine, I won't bring it up again," Kouma grumbled as he walked briskly toward the exit, "just tryin' to help, geez. Let's drop it and do those posters."

'Must not throttle Kouma. Must not throttle Kouma. Must not throttle Kouma,' Ranma chanted in his head as he followed the hellhound out the door.

* * *

As the school's new protectors were sorting themselves out, there were, of course, many significant forces still at work within the school, going about their business either unaware or uncaring of the sudden power shift.

In the forest on the far edge of the school, a student that had possessed the gumption to mock a monstrel for its mixed heritage and twisted form was torn apart by a dozen similar individuals, dying amongst the still-melting snow that blanketed that region before he had even realized what was happening.

One of the would-be participants of that ambush never arrived, having triggered a net trap built of spider webbing and meeting his end before a pair of saber-like fangs.

In one of the many rooms in the academy abandoned and given over to loose storage and random magical experimentation, a young-looking Phoenix king underwent harsh and largely pointless training at the hands of an insane sorcerer, all the while suspecting that nobody cared at all that he was gone.

And finally, and much more importantly, a group of aggrieved former defenders of the peace - who were keenly aware and disturbed by the recent personnel change in the Protection Committee - met in secret to discuss the injustices that had been heaped upon them, and what could be done about them.

Or at least, they tried to keep it secret. It was rather difficult, as the meeting had to be held at Kuyo's bedside in the nurse's office.

"Is this mandate true?" Kuyo asked, his voice almost a whisper as his hands trembled in rage.

The lanky Enforcer, sporting a ring of bandages over one eye and a gauze patch over his cheek, played with a butterfly knife nervously as he nodded. "Looks like it. I asked everyone who would know who wasn't on the council itself... or, you know, on the new Committee. Keito's right after all. Aono is in and we're out."

_FWOOM!_ The paper notice of Kuyo's dismissal vanished into a wisp of white ash as he turned his furious gaze on his former underling. "There must be some mistake. The student council cannot replace me," he rasped.

"Well, ya see," the boy with rings under his eyes mumbled from behind his fellow Netherworld minion, "they kinda can. I mean, it's their job to do things like this."

_WHAM!_ Kuyo slammed a fist on the table next to his cot, rattling a few blood-spattered medical tools that were left on top. "And what of my esteemed record of service?" Kuyo demanded imperiously, though his voice was soft and weak. "What of my contribution to this school? Has that been forgotten completely?"

One of the curtains that blocked off an adjacent cot was swept out of the way, revealing the shaggy-haired youth with a neck brace and cast over one arm.

"No, LORD Kuyo," the holy dragon murmured, speaking the honorific with slow sarcasm, "I don't think the council has forgotten the extent of the corruption that you presided over, nor the chaos that regularly took place on your watch."

"Watch your tone, you little fool," Keito snapped, causing the nameless minions to flinch back. The spider woman was the only one present who didn't bear any visible injuries, and was currently slicing an apple next to Jin's beside, where the bearded man lay completely wrapped in bandages like a mummy.

"Keito, something must be done about this," Kuyo whispered harshly as he turned his head on the pillow, "we cannot allow this travesty of justice to continue."

"Of course not, my lord," Keito cooed, crossing her legs as she put the sliced apple down next to Jin's head, "we still have many tools yet that we can use to leverage reve... Erm! Leverage JUSTICE against the usurpers."

"Speaking of tools, where's Tobaki and Haruo?" The gloomy-looking netherworlder asked. "Neither of them were targeted, right? They should be perfectly healthy."

Keito glared harshly at the bone dragon, but considering the boy was already on crutches with both his feet in casts, she didn't feel like making any threats. "Haruo should be coming soon. He has been... exceptionally careful in traveling around the school with the fight club still active. And unlike me, he's not very good at it, either." Then her expression soured further. "Treasurer Tobaki... does not intend to give up her position on the Committee."

"Whoa, wait, so she just says she doesn't want to quit, and she doesn't have to?" The lanky boy asked incredulously, "why don't we just do that?"

Kuyo snorted, and then coughed several times before speaking again. "Aono has made it clear that he intends to remove all of us from power so that he can seize it for himself. I'm sure our treasurer will be here with us soon enough when she learns that she has no recourse."

"Eventually, yes..." Keito mumbled. "Anyway, we still know that Aono is human. That information is extremely valuable; we could use it to discredit the new Committee, try to turn its new recruits against him, or simply keep the knowledge to ourselves."

The knife-wielding boy raised an eyebrow. "Why would we do that last one?"

Keito smirked. "If it is not common rumor that Aono is a weak, fragile human, then his subordinates have no reason to be careful protecting him, as most would assume he's the strongest of them all. If we wait for them to grow complacent, we can behead the serpent in one fell swoop!"

The large minion near the back, who had been silent until now, scratched his head. "But, wouldn't that make Saotome, as vice-captain, the new captain?"

The Enforcers' faces darkened as they each digested that prospect, each one coming to the conclusion that it would be far, far worse than the present scenario.

"Since when is there a vice-captain position, anyway?" Asked the skeletal dragon. "I don't remember any of us holding a position like that."

"It was unnecessary," Kuyo rasped. "As the post is only of real value in the case of me, the captain, being removed or unable to perform his duties, it is thus useless, as there is obviously no chance of that occurring."

As most of the others sweatdropped, the shaggy-haired boy sighed. "Lord Kuyo, do you know what 'irony' is?"

"Unfortunately, my dictionary was among my many belongings that were unduly confiscated along with my position," Kuyo hissed. "Why? Is it like 'investigate'? I remember what that means."

"Let's put that aside for now," Keito said, "if it's true that Saotome would simply take Aono's place, then it would be wiser to have them all removed at once, if possible. I recommend-"

Keito halted as she felt heavy footsteps approaching, and her eyebrow quirked in askance as Volos - who had been guarding the entrance to the nurse's office despite the brace around his neck and each wrist - approached with two others in tow.

None of them could see who was in the back with the two bulky men in the way, but the man immediately behind Volos was definitely Haruo.

"Ah, Haruo. I'm glad you made it," Kuyo whispered.

"Yeah, hi," the gargoyle said nervously, "uh, also-"

"Guess who else showed uuuuup!" Volos suddenly sang with a broad smile on his face as he suddenly pulled Hokuto out of the way.

Keito brightened immediately as she saw who had entered behind the two thugs. "Tobaki! You showed up after all!"

"Big Sis Keito!" The yochlol squealed as she launched herself forward at the spider woman, prompting everyone anywhere near her trajectory to jump out of the way.

As the dark-skinned demon hugged the devious arachnid, the others fell silent and tried to avoid looking at the overt display of cuddly affection. None of them had really been comfortable with the friendship between the two, especially given that the pair of girls were more or less the most dangerous members of the old Committee. Something about the bond of trust and adoration between a pile of clueless malevolent sludge and a treacherous man-eater just tended to chill the heart rather than warm it.

"Awwwww! That is SO CUUUUTE!"

At least, it did to anyone with more than three brain cells, and everyone was well aware of which of Volos' brains got shorted when his biology was sorting out how to divide neural resources.

Kuyo coughed gently to get everyone's attention, and then he coughed much harder before he managed to get his respiratory system in order. "Treasurer Tobaki. I'm glad you could make it," he rasped.

Tobaki raised an eyebrow as she settled in next to Keito, who gently stroked her hair. "What's wrong with Kuyo?"

Many people were surprised by the lack of an appropriate honorific, but Volos' apathetic mind wasn't one of them. "Eh, he's got pneumonia from being unconscious out in the snow for too long."

Tobaki blinked. "Eh? But he's a yoko. What kind of a fire elemental gets sick from the cold?"

"Actually, yoko are not elemental beasts so much as magical beasts that happen to use a particular element. Although Mister Kuyo uses fire magic exclusively, his biology is not such that he is rendered immune to disease or conditions brought about by extreme cold," said Fran Madaraki.

The assembled former Enforcers stared silently at the nurse as she checked on Jin's condition, taking the yheti's pulse.

"Ah... Miss Madaraki, we-" Kuyo started to say before the school nurse interrupted him.

"I just need to check Mister Kaishuu's vitals to ensure that his body temperature is receding properly," Fran said, not turning to face the disgraced leader, "don't mind me. You can go back to making your dastardly and ultimately futile plans."

"Well then," Kuyo said, apparently reassured, "Treasurer Tobaki, since you have made it here, our hand is strengthened considerably in our bid to reclaim control of the Protection Committee."

"Oh, is that what you're doing?" Tobaki asked. "Then I suppose none of you would be willing to join the new Protection Committee, would you?"

"Hm? What do you mean?" Keito asked.

Haruo timidly held up a scrap of paper. "It's this. The new Protection Committee is... recruiting."

"Yes, we figured as much," Keito said, "but Tobaki, don't tell me that you..."

"Yup!" The elven girl made a "V" with her fingers. "Captain Aono has officially endorsed me as treasurer, so I get to stay! I was just stopping by to make sure you guys knew about the recruitment so you could try out too!"

As everyone else stood stunned at the revelation, Kuyo shook his head. "How foolish. As if there are any among us proud and noble souls that would take orders from a human."

Silence greeted his remark, and the injured yoko glanced around suspiciously. "Isn't that right?"

"Oh! Right!" The lantern said, jumping to attention as the others rushed to grant their own reassurances.

"Of course!"

"Totally!"

"Human! Yeah! Screw those guys!"

"Not that I'm in any way considering joining the new Committee," Keito said as she leaned forward, "but can I get a better look at the poster? I need to, ah... adjust my evil plot to account for this new information. Yes. Let's go with that."

"Speaking of plans," mumbled Jin as he started to push himself up, "my new one involves being mobile by the time the recruitment meeting occurs. When and where?"

"It's tomorrow at four PM," Keito noted as she looked over the poster, "at Kraken's Bluff out behind dorm unit E."

"Are you planning an ambush?" Kuyo asked hoarsely, sitting up.

"In the sense that someone will probably be very surprised to see us all there, yeah, sure, it's an ambush," Haruo said as he strode out of the room, followed by Jin, Keito, Volos, and the three of the Netherworld monsters that were still mobile enough to leave right away.

"Miss Madaraki, can I get some crutches or something?" The shaggy-haired boy asked, "I have somewhere to go tomorrow."

"I don't need crutches, as I can render the floor frictionless and slide to a given location," Jin boasted, "so if you have any unused, oversized bedpans... Oh, and maybe a pole to help push myself?"

"This is absurd," Kuyo rasped as his eyes narrowed, glancing back and forth before finally settling on Tobaki. "Treasurer Tobaki, you cannot seriously mean to join with those usurpers."

Tobaki blinked, as if confused at Kuyo's bemusement. "Why wouldn't I? I like being treasurer."

"You would turn your back on me, the one who GAVE you that position? You would betray my trust and work under a lowly HUMAN simply because it is the most expedient route to stay in power?" Kuyo hissed, straining his voice as his throat ached.

"Yes," Tobaki said without hesitation. Then she flushed slightly, looking uncertain. "Is that strange? Big sis Keito always taught me that only people strong enough to stay on top deserve loyalty."

"Well, she-" Kuyo gasped out, only to be interrupted.

"This is also consistent with your own thoughts on the nature of authority and power, that neither is worthy of respect without the other," Tobaki continued, "as your current lack of official title would effectively make you no more worthy of loyalty than Vice-Captain Saotome when he challenged us... Even less, perhaps, since his power at least exceeds yours."

"Tobaki!" Kuyo managed to shout before suddenly descending into a coughing fit. After clearing his throat sufficiently, he wheezed, "this isn't just about power and authority! It is about JUSTICE!"

Tobaki nodded slowly as she considered this, and then scratched her head as she thought hard about the topic.

After several seconds, she turned back to Kuyo apologetically. "Sorry, but I don't think you ever taught me anything about justice. If it's important though, I'll ask Captain Aono about it later."

Kuyo tried to give a response to that, but found that after his last outburst his lungs didn't seem to have the strength to manage words anymore.

"Well, I'll see you around Kuyo! Get better soon!" Tobaki chirped as she walked out, waving to the bedridden malcontents.

"This does not bode well," Kuyo grumbled weakly.

"You should be more careful, Mister Kuyo," Fran chided as she stepped up to the injured yoko, "you're in no condition to exert yourself."

Kuyo wilted slightly under Fran's curiously ambivalent gaze. "My apologies," he croaked out as he glanced over the side of his bed, having heard a strange scraping noise.

Next to his bed, Jin huffed mightily as he blew frost over another stretch of floor before slowly pushing himself - seated semi-comfortably in a metal wash bin - over the ice with a steel pole.

"I'll get your next dose of antibiotics," Fran said as she walked off, writing notes down on her clipboard as she went, "after that I'll see if we have any more wing-splints left."

"Thank you!" The shaggy-haired ex-Enforcer called out.

* * *

"All right!" Tsukune said excitedly as he headed toward the Protection Committee offices to start their first day of official campus safety work. "Now we can finally start to turn this place around! This just might work out!"

Walking behind him were Moka and Ranma, and while the pink-haired vampire looked quite pleased and seemed to share some of Tsukune's energy - perhaps literally, as Tsukune had a fairly recent pair of puncture wounds on his neck - Ranma seemed despondent and subdued as he trudged along behind the younger boy.

"TSUKUNE!" A bright and happy shout was all the warning the new captain got before he was tackled from the side, his head locked behind a pair of deceptively strong arms and his face smothered between two warm, dangerously soft mounds of flesh.

Moka's mood dipped instantly as Tsukune started flailing his arms, utterly failing to extract himself from Kurumu's erotic ambush. "Kurumu, stop that! I think you're hurting him!"

"Oh, really?" The succubus drawled, immediately pinching the side of Tsukune's collar and tugging it down to more clearly expose a pair of holes in his skin. "Yeah, I'm just terrible, aren't I?"

As Moka descended into embarrassed silence, Kurumu finally let a gasping and red-faced Tsukune go before noticing Ranma.

"Hey, did something happen?" Kurumu asked in concern.

Moka forced herself to keep a somber face as she explained. "It seems that Ranma skipped too many homerooms, so Miss Nekonome spent some extra time chewing him out."

Kurumu noticed with great interest that Ranma flinched visibly at the term "chewed".

"It seems she also heard about what happened to the student council hall, because she also lectured him about the dangers of summoning tornadoes and how it affects his attempt to pass as a human," Moka continued, doing an admirable job of not seeming smug or at all pleased about Ranma's misfortune.

"One little tornado and people act like I'm some kind of maniac," Ranma grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Nobody made a big deal about it at my OLD school."

"That's horrifying," Tsukune deadpanned.

"What kind of freaks did you you go to school with?" Kurumu asked, clearly amazed.

Ranma was actually caught off-guard by the question, suddenly wondering about whether the humans at Furinkan were really just as bad, or maybe even worse, than the murderous psychos he currently went to school with.

"... I don't want to talk about it," Ranma said quietly, turning his head away.

Sad that Ranma had decided not to divulge more of his disturbing and always entertaining past, Kurumu latched onto Tsukune arm while running a finger up and down the flushing boy's chest. "So Captain, what's first for today?" The succubus purred.

"P-Please don't call me Captain," Tsukune stuttered, trying to project an air of dignity as best he could while his arm was wedged in Kurumu's cleavage, "I haven't done anything so great that any of you should have to defer to me. Please, keep calling me by my name."

"Gotcha," Ranma said easily, severely undermining the dramatic humility of Tsukune's request, "so Tsukune, what're we doing now?"

"Well, we should head back to the offices and try and get a grip on what our specific duties are going to be day-to-day," Tsukune reasoned. "Also, I want to talk to you about the recruitment rally later today."

"Leave it all to me, buddy!" Ranma said, perking up immediately. "You want people who are going to put the school first, right?"

Tsukune blinked. "Uh... Yes. Well, that's not the only qualification, but that should be the most important thing. From here on out the Protection Committee is putting integrity before authority, and I need our new people to recognize that," he said firmly.

"Gotcha covered," Ranma said, smirking casually as he flashed the younger human a thumbs-up.

Tsukune had his doubts, just as he had when Ranma first elected to manage the recruitment efforts, but like before he put them aside. After all, Ranma had done a passable job in building their numbers high enough to at least start their basic duties, and Tsukune was always reluctant to assume he knew better than Ranma, especially when it came to dealing with their monstrous classmates.

"Well, if you're sure you can handle it," Tsukune said, trying and failing to sound confident, "but if you need help don't hesitate to ask."

"It's no problem," Ranma said, brushing off the younger boy's concerns as he reached the front door and opened it, "I've got everything woooAAAAUGH!"

"STOP doing that," Tobaki demanded sharply as she crossed her arms under her breasts. She was standing in the middle of the lobby again, holding a manilla folder and, for some reason, wearing a pair of thin rectangle-lens glasses that none of them remembered seeing before.

Ranma immediately cut short his screech of terror, flushing in embarrassment. "Sorry. I still need a little time to hold down that reflex."

"No, it's all right, we don't blame you," Moka said, surprising the pigtailed boy and Tsukune (not so much Kurumu, who knew exactly what particular trauma was triggering the outbursts).

Tobaki strode up to Tsukune and locked eyes with him, her expression possessing a level of cold, determined professionalism that he wouldn't have expected from his (admittedly limited) previous experience with the girl.

"Captain Aono, it is my understanding that you wished someone with experience as to the Protection Committee's roles and dealings to brief you so that you can more quickly take command and manage our activities, is this correct?"

Tsukune blinked, taken off guard once again. "Er... Yes. That's right."

Tobaki bowed deeply. "Then allow me to brief you appropriately," standing up straight again, she handed him the folder. "Here are the most pressing details in hard copy for your personal retention and perusal. First and foremost, I suggest you appoint your primary officers."

Tsukune looked slightly overwhelmed as he took the folder, though it was certainly due more to Tobaki's mannerisms than information overload. "What do you mean, exactly?"

Tobaki's glasses gleamed as she briefly pushed them up the bridge of her nose. "You yourself are captain. Mister Saotome is vice-captain. I am treasurer. This is not the extent of the Protection Committee's posts, however. You'll need someone to lead the Compliance Squad - assuming we have enough members to put one together - someone to manage information and contacts, and someone to attend student council meetings to represent our interests."

Moka frowned. "Isn't that last post the one that the Committee used to keep themselves in power even as they abused it relentlessly?"

"Yes. As you might imagine, abusing power is very difficult without a proper campaign of intimidation and a constant presence among those who might defy us," Tobaki explained as her glasses gleamed again, "thus it's important that the appointee be adequately fierce and too dim to get embroiled in actual council business. I would recommend that Gamaroshi fellow for the role."

Tsukune rolled his eyes as he took a seat, while Kurumu, loth to leave his side, sat on the armrest next to him to maintain as much physical contact as possible without actually sitting on him.

"Rather than doing something like that, why don't we, I don't know, not abuse our power in the first place?" He asked.

Tobaki raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of such a strategy... That would eliminate most of the risks and associated safeguards necessary to manage them when trying to maintain our current levels of corruption. As expected of the captain."

As Tobaki mused with a comical level of seriousness on the idea of clean, lawful governance, Kurumu suddenly fell victim to her curiosity and snatched off Tobaki's glasses.

"Okay, well, if you insist, then you're the boss," Tobaki said, shrugging as her mannerisms instantly became more relaxed and her speech less formal. "Oh! But sometimes you might have something to tell the student council, and they sometimes have complaints about things that probably don't matter to you, so..."

Kurumu wordlessly leaned forward again to put Tobaki's glasses back on.

"... So it would be prudent for you to appoint someone to the post, either to handle information and requests from the council or, should you wish it, to prevent those matters from reaching you," Tobaki continued as she promptly pushed her glasses into a more comfortable position on her nose.

Then she glared sharply at Kurumu. "Also, stop that."

"Impossible," the succubus replied seriously, trying and failing to contain her amusement at this new discovery.

"All right, given that," Tsukune mumbled, deliberately ignoring Kurumu's action, "Moka, could you take that post?"

Moka blinked in surprise. "Me?"

Tsukune nodded, smiling. "We need someone level-headed and smart to deal with the council, so I think you'd be perfect. What do you say?"

"S-Sure!" Moka stuttered, flushing slightly as Kurumu pouted.

"Kurumu, I'd like you to handle compliance," Tsukune continued.

She seemed far more startled than Moka had been. "Wh-What? But isn't that for someone stronger?"

"Well, I imagine that Ranma will be doing plenty of enforcement work, but if he can't be in charge all the time then I'd like it to be you. Kouma might be stronger, but he's also really reckless and temperamental, while you're..." Tsukune paused for a moment, trying to think of a good euphemism and then quickly giving up, "you're less reckless and temperamental. And I know that you always put everything you've got into a battle when you have to fight. I know I can trust you to make the right choices if things get bad."

"Sure! Anything for you, Tsukune!" Kurumu beamed as she snuggled him again.

"R-Right," Tsukune mumbled as he tried to think of anything except how Kurumu's pillowy breasts felt against his cheek. "As for information and management, I think that should be Yukari's area."

"Accepted!" Yukari said as slid into the room from between Ranma's legs, making a "V" with her fingers as she skidded to a stop. "Leave it to me!"

Tsukune stared at the young witch awkwardly. "Uh... Where did you come from?"

"I've been here all morning, via an official waiver to skip homeroom!" Yukari explained cheerfully. "I've been setting up my office! Wanna see?"

As she gestured to the room behind her, Tobaki's glasses gleamed again.

"That's the captain's office, not yours," Tobaki said firmly.

"Correction: that WAS Kuyo's office, and was then free space, and is now mine," Yukari said smugly.

"That's fine," Tsukune said, holding up his hands. "It's not like I need-"

"Unacceptable!" Tobaki shouted suddenly, turning toward the young witch and glaring down at her. "Hierarchy must be respected! For the captain to cede the master office to a simple underling would undermine the authority of the Committee head and corrode the-"

"Yukari, did you call dibs?" Ranma suddenly asked, tiring of the argument.

Yukari nodded solemnly. "Of course! I even have it in writing!"

Before Tobaki could respond, Ranma snatched her glasses away in half the blink of an eye. "Okay, show her."

Yukari promptly shoved a single paper into Tobaki's blinking face.

"Oh, wow, it's notarized and everything," Tobaki mumbled. "Well, I guess since you have dibs, it's yours."

"You seem to be adjusting very well to bureaucratic life," Kurumu deadpanned.

"Genius," Yukari quipped smugly.

"So, wait, I feel like there's one more job that needs to be filled," Tsukune said as he disentangled himself fully from Kurumu, "shouldn't someone be in charge of receiving complaints directly from the students and opening up investigations?"

Tobaki frowned. "Why would you want to do that?"

Tsukune sighed. "So that we can respond efficiently to the students' concerns and make the school safer for everyone."

"That sounds like so much WORK," Tobaki complained.

"Hold on," Ranma grumbled as he put Tobaki's glasses back on. "There. Try now."

Tsukune stared awkwardly for several seconds. "Uh... Should I ask again, or-"

"To answer your question," Tobaki said in a distinctly irritated tone, "there was no post previously to process complaints or initiate investigations. Such things were considered an annoyance and so left to the discretion of individuals. Deployment authority, meanwhile, rested solely with Kuyo, rather than being a matter of procedure. If you want there to be such a position and thus a formalized procedure to deal with such things rather than a screen to prevent such matters from affecting you, that is of course up to you."

"New question," Yukari said suddenly, raising her hand. "Are you nearsighted, farsighted, or what?"

"I have perfect vision," Tobaki said blandly, pushing up her glasses, "but an accountant has to wear glasses, after all."

"Aren't you just a treasurer?" Kurumu asked.

"It's the same thing," the yochlol insisted, "you can't keep records without glasses. It's just common sense."

"Putting aside how uncommon your sense is," Tsukune mumbled, "who's going to take the post? All of us already have main duties."

"Kouma?" Kurumu asked, simply naming the first person that came to mind.

"I'd rather not put him in charge of anything, ever," Tsukune mumbled.

"Chopper?" Yukari guessed, shrugging.

"He doesn't care about anything but fighting," Ranma said, shaking his head. "No way."

"I don't suppose Kana could do a job where she'd have to speak to strangers constantly," Moka mused.

Ranma nodded solemnly as he walked across the width of the lobby to one of the comfortable plush chairs. "Well, I guess that means it's up to you, Mizore," he said as he picked up the chair cushion, revealing a head of mussy purple hair.

Everyone else seemed quite surprised to see her, despite Mizore's antics having become commonplace among them.

"Who is that? What are you doing here?" Tobaki demanded, pushing up her glasses.

"Relax, she's with us," Ranma said. "So Mizore, you think you can handle a help desk?"

Mizore looked apprehensive as she slowly stood up (leading most of those present to wonder how she had fit herself in the chair in the first place), but nodded as she gazed lovingly at Ranma. "If you want me to do it... I'll try."

"Well, we might have more people this afternoon, so there might be someone else better suited to taking the role eventually," Tsukune offered, holding out his hand for Mizore to shake, "in the meantime though, we'd all appreciate your help, Mizore."

"Okay, sure," she mumbled, still staring at Ranma and making no move to take Tsukune's hand, "whatever."

Tsukune cleared his throat as he finally withdrew his hand, "Okay, well, I guess that means we all have duties and responsibilities to take care of, which I assume are all listed in this folder-"

"Of course," Tobaki interjected as she adjusted her glasses again.

"Thanks a lot for that, by the way, it's very helpful," Tsukune offered.

"Well, it was necessary to make amends for my earlier actions in disposing of the student councilman," Tobaki explained, "I hope that with this I have proven my worth and cleared any misgivings you may have about me."

There were about five seconds of awkward silence before Tsukune finally managed to come up with a proper response. "No, not really. I mean, this is great, but you KILLED someone."

Tobaki frowned as she lowered her glasses slightly to stare over them. "Then exactly how much good favor must I earn to compensate for one little killing? I didn't even break school rules."

Tsukune worked hard to keep his tone even as he replied. "A lot of favor. Killing an innocent person isn't anything to take lightly. It's not the sort of thing that you make up for by typing up some helpful documents."

Tobaki pushed her glasses back up. "Well, what if I told you that the student councilman who was sent here to inquire about the first one is safely restrained in my office right now awaiting your decision on his disposal rather than dismembered and scattered all over the floor? Does that help?"

This prompted another awkward silence as everyone else tried to avoid eye contact with the bemused elven girl.

"Well... Yes. I suppose it does, ultimately," Tsukune said with as much delicacy as he could muster at the moment. "Can I see him now?"

"Right this way, Captain," Tobaki said respectfully as she bowed and gestured to her office.

Ranma kept silent as Tsukune and Tobaki left, trying to keep his nervousness from showing.

"Hey, shouldn't you go with him?" Kurumu asked, "you know, in case she tries to kill him? Or... do 'something else' to him?"

"If you're that worried, why don't you go?" Ranma grumbled, "besides, Tsukune'll be fine. He's pretty good at handling anyone who's willing to actually listen to him."

"Resistance to Rhetoric is a very rare trait," Yukari agreed, "and Tobaki has already established that she's a subordinate. That's probably like another -5 to her saving throw."

Moka blinked. "What? Saving throw? What are you talking about?"

"Magic stuff. Don't worry about it," the young witch said dismissively.

Moka reluctantly did so, instead focusing her attention back toward Ranma. "So, what exactly are your plans for the recruitment session?"

Ranma snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I've got it all worked out, don't worry!"

"I AM worried," Moka deadpanned. "The last speech you gave didn't exactly impress."

Ranma recoiled slightly from the blunt criticism of his efforts. "What was wrong with my last speech? You all joined, didn't you?"

"We joined because we're your friends, Kouma joined because he was humiliated into it, Shirayuki joined because she'd follow you anywhere, and I'm guessing that Kanade joined once she found out that Shirayuki was joining," Kurumu said as she sat down in one of the lobby chairs and crossed her legs, "so the only one you actually impressed enough with the speech to convince is Chopper."

Ranma twitched as his eyes drifted away from everyone else. "Actually, well... I kind of forced Chopper to join. He didn't really want to."

As Kurumu chuckled and Moka shook her head, Yukari's hand darted up. "All right, Senpai! I'll help you out!"

"Oh, wow, that just FILLS me with confidence," Kurumu drawled, "why don't you let Tsukune handle it?"

"Tsukune has his talents, but I agree that picking out talented officers and kicking a bunch of unruly power-hungry monsters into line is a job most suited for senpai," Yukari said, not responding to the sarcasm. "I can help him mix in an appropriate amount of Tsukune's namby-pamby truth and justice nonsense to make it sound inspirational while at the same time laying down the law so that we don't have anyone else murdering someone just because they didn't know that it's frowned upon."

As Yukari made her best "confident genius" face and tried to stare down Kurumu's doubtful gaze, she suddenly felt her hat shift as Ranma rubbed her head affectionately.

"You know Runt, you've come a long way," Ranma said fondly, "it wasn't that long ago you called Tsukune by his surname and was calling him 'dull' and 'useless' all the time."

Yukari flushed as Kurumu and Moka both smiled at her (although Kurumu's was certainly more akin to an amused smirk). "W-Well, it isn't as if he hasn't worked for it! And it'd be weird if I was the only one calling him 'Aono,' what with you guys calling him by name and everyone else calling him 'Captain'!"

Ranma chuckled. "Heh! Well, that's certainly... Eh?" He glanced to the side as he felt something brush him, and he saw that Mizore was leaning her head against his arm, staring up at him imploringly.

"Me too," she said suddenly.

Ranma hesitantly patted Mizore's head, prompting the snow woman to sigh blissfully. "Right... Like I was saying, if you wanna help out, that's fine. I need to hurry to class, though. Prof Richard said that if I'm late again he'd track down and disintegrate everyone I've ever really loved."

Kurumu sweatdropped. "That seems like an awful lot of trouble. Why doesn't he just kill **you**?"

"Everyone I've loved is much slower than I am," Ranma mumbled irritably as he stopped rubbing Mizore's head. "I'll see the rest of you guys after school. Since you're new recruits too, you should all be at the recruitment meeting this afternoon. Mizore, I'll see you in class. Unless you choose a really good hiding spot. The ice chest is kind of obvious."

"But it's so comfortable in there," Mizore grumbled as she followed him out the door with Yukari trailing behind them.

After Ranma, Mizore, and Yukari were gone and well out of earshot, Moka started to massage her forehead. "I'm still worried."

"Yeah, actually, having Yukari help out kind makes things more volatile, not less," Kurumu agreed as she let herself sink into her chair, "but hey, if Tsukune's willing to leave it to them, we might as well wait and see."

Before Moka could respond, the door to Tobaki's office suddenly opened, and an unfamiliar boy stepped out while scrubbing his hair with a towel.

"Like I said, there aren't words to express how sorry I am that things ended up like this," Tsukune said as he followed the man into the lobby, followed by a mildly bemused Tobaki. "I know there's no way you can forgive us, but I swear that I'll put a stop to things like this."

"I still don't see why this is a problem," Tobaki grumbled as she fussed with her glasses, "I didn't kill anyone this time, just as you asked."

Tsukune put considerable effort into ignoring the girl behind him as he continued pleading to the student councilman. "I have a long ways to go, obviously, but I won't give up! In the meantime, if there's anything I can do-"

"So let me get this straight," the stranger said suddenly as he tossed away the towel that was filthy with yellow gunk, "not only is my colleague dead and disposed of, but you've decided to take it upon yourself to 'handle' his murderer, who is one of the old guard supposedly to be removed from power. Who you are apparently keeping on in the new Protection Committee."

Tsukune winced at that painfully accurate description of his situation. "Well, uh... Yes. That's... all true," he admitted glumly.

The council member nodded. "Meaning that not ONLY do I not have to bother dealing with the body of my predecessor, but I don't have to try to complete his assigned task or mete out punishment for the murder, which was not, as the Treasurer has made abundantly clear, actually in violation of any school rules."

"Really, it's like I filled out those forms for nothing," Tobaki grumbled quietly to herself.

Tsukune seemed a bit surprised and disturbed by how hopeful the councilman sounded. "Uh... Yes, I suppose all of that is true, too."

"Oh, thank Dagoth!" the man said, clearly relieved. "That's great! You're the best, Lord Aono!"

"Er, no, not really," Tsukune said, feeling even worse at the unexpected praise. "And please, don't call me 'Lord'. I don't really deserve that kind of respect."

"Whatever you say, Captain Aono! I know you're very busy, so I'll just be on my way and never come back! Thanks!"

Tsukune's face darkened as the councilman bolted for the lobby door with a speed borne either of continuing fear for his life or enthusiasm for his lack of further responsibilities within the territory of the new Protection Committee.

The door was flung open and then slammed shut, and Tobaki sighed wearily as she took off her glasses and smiled at Tsukune.

"Well, I think that went great! It's always nice when everyone leaves these encounters happy, right Captain?" the elven girl beamed.

Tsukune staggered over to Moka and Kurumu, not wanting to keep discussing this matter with Tobaki any more. "I feel sick," he complained.

"That effect is only temporary," Tobaki explained cheerfully, completely misunderstanding Tsukune's discomfort as was fast becoming a habit, "the smell of the ichor usually dissipates after ten minutes. Five, if we open up all the windows!"

Moka and Kurumu couldn't think of anything sufficiently strong to say that wouldn't also risk them being messily dismembered, so they quietly took hold of either side of Tsukune and quickly helped him out the door without a backward glance.

Tobaki was confused by why she was still getting the cold shoulder from the other Committee members, but quickly shrugged it off.

"They're a lot less cheerful than the last bunch, but I guess it's good that they take their duties seriously," she said to herself as she shrugged and put her glasses back on. "Well then. Back to work!"

* * *

That afternoon saw quite an unusual collection of students gathered together at the top of the cliff that hung over an inlet of the sea that sat at the edge of the barrier that surrounded Youkai Academy. The majority of the individuals were from the old Protection Committee, and although that would have been awkward enough for most, the people currently waiting alongside them had increased the tension in the air very near the breaking point.

Jin Kaishuu, still sitting in the metal washtub he had borrowed from the nurse's office, glanced nervously at Chopper Rikishi who, was himself shifting his gaze from person to person while cracking his knuckles. Kishia tried desperately not to look at Kouma while the hellhound puffed on a cigarette several feet away from the others, keeping an aloof expression as his eyes occasionally darted toward Kana to make sure the abnormally shy girl was still still huddled behind Moka and Kurumu and nowhere near him. Moka and Kurumu stayed together, both of them glaring at Keito as the spider woman glared back... from behind Haruo, who was practically trembling from all the familiar and unwelcoming stares he was getting.

The disquiet was obvious enough that Ranma picked it up with barely a glance at the uncomfortable meeting, before he was even in earshot.

"Whoa. Looks like this could get ugly," the pigtailed boy mumbled.

"Hmph. Looks like most of them are from the old Committee," Yukari said as she came up behind him. "Do they really think they can just sign up now and their past record will be abolished?"

The young witch stopped to think about that. "Wait, that IS exactly what we did with Tobaki, isn't it?"

"Well, unless they're as scary as her, that isn't gonna fly," Ranma said as he straightened his clothes, "and even if they were, I already used up all my favors that Tsukune might owe me, so it probably wouldn't work even then."

Yukari nodded grimly. "Well, this is it, then. I'll join the rabble, so do it just like we worked out."

"Got it. Go get in line, Squirt. I'll be right behind you."

Yukari's entrance didn't merit much attention from the crowd beyond a few dirty looks, but once Ranma trudged into view through the drywood forest with his hands in his pockets, most of the tension gave way to steely discipline largely borne of fear. All of the students that had previously been Enforcers immediately lined up and straightened, staring forward with their hands gripped tightly behind their backs (except of course for Jin, who did the best he could from his wash bin). A few seconds later the others reluctantly lined up as well, if more loosely, and without any pretense of practiced drilling.

"Well, this is a decent turnout," Ranma said as he approached, looking over the students, "although I see a lot of familiar faces, I... Hang on."

Ranma stopped suddenly and walked over to a thick cluster of bushes. There was a brief gasping noise as he reached both arms in, and those gathered were reasonably surprised to see him pull Mizore out from her hiding place.

Ranma silently carried the blushing snow woman over to the others, and then put her down on one end of the line, next to Yukari.

"There. Now where was I?" Ranma asked. "Right. Some of you are familiar, and some of you are... what's the word? Like familiar, but you want to punch them?"

"Notorious?" Kouma guessed.

"Yeah! That! Good dog!" Ranma said brightly, eliciting an irritated growl from the hellhound. "Anyway, let me be honest with you all: many of you are only here as a formality, because you've already been accepted, and most of the rest of you aren't going to make the cut. Any questions so far?"

The netherworld minion with dark rings under his eyes raised his hand. "Why are we holding this meeting on the edge of a cliff?"

Ranma promptly kicked him in the chest, sending the monster flailing over the edge and into the sea.

"AAAAAAAAAAAA-" _Sploosh!_

"Any more questions?" Ranma asked as many members of the previous Protection Committee started to sweat nervously.

When no one else volunteered, Ranma nodded.

"Good! Now listen up, because I'm about to teach you freaks the pecking order around here!" The pigtailed boy yelled. "First, there's you! Then there's the dirt! Then there's the worms inside the dirt! Then there's my pet spiders! Then me! And then Aono Tsukune, your captain!"

"We have to take orders from worms and spiders? What a pain," Volos complained as his lethargic personality asserted itself. "This is such a booooAAAAAAAAAA-" _Sploosh!_

Ranma dusted off his pants briefly, then went back to his speech. "Finally, do you know who's at the top of the pecking order? Even higher than Tsukune?"

There was considerable confusion regarding this, as most of the students had no idea who Tsukune would answer to.

Jin cocked his head to the side. "Is it... the headmaster?"

Ranma promptly stepped up to him, and Jin held his hands up. "Wait! I'm injured already! You can't kick me off a cliff!"

Ranma stopped short as he stood right in front of the yheti. "Yeah, actually, I guess that is a bit cruel."

Ranma then grabbed one side of Jin's wash bin and tilted it upward, spilling Jin out into the sea.

"HWAAAAAAAAAA-" _Sploosh!_

"Like I was saying," Ranma said as he put the bin down, "there's someone higher on the pecking order than Tsukune. And that's the students."

This prompted a great deal of confusion from everyone except Yukari, even amongst those that had more developed and humane moral codes. Nobody said anything, however, and they patiently awaited an explanation.

"In human civilization, by which I mean ACTUAL civilization, people are only given power and authority in order to use it to serve others," Ranma explained, delving further and further into a topic that many of those gathered suspected was quite out of his depth. "If the school gives you the authority to beat someone up, it's so you can protect someone who needs it, not so you can do what you want and get away with it!"

Seeing that most of the students only looked more doubtful and confused the more he explained, Ranma cleared his throat. "So here's the recap! The students are your boss! You work for them! When some random geek asks for help, you don't wait for orders from me or Tsukune! And if you do, you'll be handed a punishment instead! That's the kind of Protection Committee that we're building now, and if you don't like it, then you'd best turn around and leave while you're still dry!" Yukari quickly flashed him a thumbs-up.

Many of the former Enforcers, briefly mulling over this curious new mandate, did precisely that, quickly leaving the lineup and walking away grumbling.

Ranma snorted as he watched Haruo lead a couple others away from the bluff, all of them looking annoyed and disappointed. He was quickly joined by a few other former Enforcers whom Ranma didn't recognize plus Volos, who had only just managed to climb up from the sea.

"All right then," Ranma said, his expression grim as he looked at the remaining candidates, "it looks like everybody left except for the people that were already selected to join us... and two other chicks. Huh."

Kishia, one of the two to remain, timidly raised her hand. "Uh... Is asking questions still going to get us kicked oooOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA-" _Sploosh!_

Ranma backed away from where he had booted the elemental over the edge, and then turned toward the only remaining person who wasn't merely attending the recruitment meeting for the sake of spectacle.

Keito stared back evenly, expertly masking her fear at being now surrounded by unfriendly peers and facing down the man who had more-or-less dismantled the Enforcers single-handedly.

"Aren't you that nasty spider chick? The one who jumped us from Volos' office?" Ranma asked as his eyes narrowed.

Keito considered the question carefully before she answered, "If I said no, would that help my recruitment chances or hurt them?"

Ranma answered her by planting his shoe in her face and surrendering her to the cold, merciless waves.

"Okay. It looks like that's all taken care of," Ranma muttered as he dusted off his hands.

"So what was the point of us gathering here?" Kouma groused. "You drove or kicked off everyone who you didn't recruit already."

"Well, there were a FEW people I didn't know who weren't with the old Enforcers," Yukari said, "but I guess they didn't like the part about serving the students."

"Well, there's not too much we can do about that," Moka admitted, "and it's better that we don't, anyway. We need people who aren't going to try to subvert Tsukune's rules."

Kurumu nodded. "And really, there's no point in overthrowing the old Committee if we just let them sign up again in the new one."

"Surely it doesn't make that big a difference," Keito said as she crossed her arms over her chest, "if you can keep on Tobaki, why not me?"

Ranma immediately turned on the spider woman. "Hey, Tobaki's a special case! But there isn't anything stopping me from taking YOU out!" Then the martial artist frowned. "Speaking of which, didn't I already knock you off the cliff?"

"Spider," Keito said simply.

"We're not keeping on another one of you corrupt goons!" Kurumu said, planting her hands on her hips. "Especially not after what you personally put us through!"

If Keito seemed intimidated by the glares she was getting from Moka and Kurumu, she didn't show it. "At the time you were miscreants acting against the official authority, and I was under orders to detain you. Everything I did, whether you think it was ethical or not, was completely within school rules and allowable according to the operational procedures that Kuyo put in place."

Chopper started cracking his knuckles. "Y'know, if I broke her arms before we threw her over the edge, she probably couldn't climb back up." Keito, having heard all of the rumors of Chopper Rikishi's activities and knowing his reputation didn't include idle threats, started to break out in a cold sweat.

"Wait, don't you think she has a point, though?" Yukari asked. "She was doing what would have only seemed fair and reasonable to her at the time. If that sense of fairness and reason was a bit warped, yeah, that's her fault, but if she wants to join us she must be willing to follow orders."

"Why are you always rushing to the defense of these creeps, Runt?" Kurumu asked suspiciously. "This isn't like Tobaki. We don't have to let her hold on to power because Ranma's terrified to fight her."

'Saotome's afraid of Tobaki? Fascinating,' Keito thought while appearing to take no particular notice of the tidbit. "I don't know why you decided to allow Tobaki to stay with the Committee, but I'll match whatever effort she made to earn your... 'approval'."

Kurumu blinked. "Really? You'd be willing to force yourself on-"

The succubus was suddenly silenced as Ranma clamped a hand down over her mouth, sweat beading over her forehead. "All right! That's enough!" He declared, giving Kurumu a very deliberate glare before releasing her. "Okay, look, what was your name again, spider lady?"

"You can call me Keito. My surname is Aramara, but that's a clan name that extends to thousands of individuals, so it typically isn't used," she explained as she bowed, "I am at your service, Vice-Captain."

"Keito. Right," Ranma grumbled as he scratched the side of his head, "well, I wasn't planning on recruiting any more of the old Enforcers, but you stuck around even after the 'you're lower than dirt' speech and even climbed back up the cliff to get another chance. I can see you want the job way more than the others did."

"Or at least you're way better at climbing crags than they are," Kouma quipped as he rolled his eyes.

Ranma continued as if the hellhound hadn't said anything. "So I suppose the very least I can do for you is give Tsukune the final word rather than letting Chopper break all your limbs."

Keito sweatdropped as her nervousness crept up another notch. "I... I thought it was just my arms..."

"Sorry, Ranma's higher on the pecking order," Chopper apologized as he crossed his arms over his chest, "if he says your legs have to go too, then I'm gonna have to break your legs as well." The amount of sincere regret in his voice did nothing to make Keito feel better about the prospect.

"Well... I suppose we can leave it to Tsukune," Moka said. She was still reluctant at ceding any ground to the vicious woman, but seeing her surrounded by powerful, hostile men threatening to break her had aroused her conscience somewhat. Ostensibly she was opposed to violence against girls, although she gladly relaxed such standards when the girl in question had attacked and tried to kill her closest friend.

"Finally! I made it!"

Everyone turned to look at the shaggy-haired youth staggering toward the bluff, his torso wrapped in bandages and his right leg encased in a thick cast. He only managed to walk with the aid of a crutch, and even the relatively short walk from the school had left the boy gasping for breath.

"I'm here to try out for the-"

Kouma snorted and cut the boy off. "Eh, just another one of the Enforcer goons," he grunted, recognizing the holy dragon immediately from the time that the Netherworld monsters had approached him and the others in the cafeteria.

"And he's late," Yukari scoffed, "definitely not New Committee material."

"B-But, wait, I-"

Ranma cut off the boy's protest this time as he handed Jin's borrowed wash bin to Chopper. "Here, use this. He is injured, after all."

"Gotcha, Boss," Chopper said as he grabbed the hapless and confused boy by the shoulder and dropped him in the bin.

"Wait! Stop! I'm UWAAAAAAAAAAA-" _Sploosh!_

"There, I even tossed the bin along with 'im. That way he'll float easier," Chopper said, sounding proud of himself.

"Very humane. Good job," Ranma agreed, prompting a sigh from Moka and another thumbs-up from Yukari, "now let's go see Tsukune."

* * *

The New Protection Committee that Ranma led back to the committee's offices was quite tense and awkward long before they had entered the main lobby.

The principal reason for this was probably that Keito was being led in the middle of the group in manner quite similar to that of a dangerous criminal being escorted to their place of final judgment. Kouma and Chopper, two of the strongest monsters there and by far the biggest, flanked the spider woman on each side, both of them occasionally casting her disdainful looks like people sometimes did right before squashing a (normal) spider. Kurumu and Moka, weaker perhaps than the two boys but both bearing a personal grudge against Keito, followed behind the group, and Keito didn't need to open up any of the eyes on the back of her head to tell that they were practically glaring holes in her.

Leading the way, Ranma wasn't adding to this tension personally, but the way that Mizore and Kana followed right behind him, their eyes locked in a furious electric glare, was uncomfortable all on its own.

Still, despite the tension and bad feelings that permeated the group on their way to the offices, everyone could agree that it was far less unsettling than what happened once they arrived.

"Big Sis Keito!" Tobaki squealed as she flung her glasses off and raced across the lobby.

"Tobaki!" Keito shouted happily, her stoic, icy expression breaking as she intercepted a flying hug from the dark elf.

Everyone backed away as the two snuggled each other, feeling chills down their spines.

"It's like watching Mao and Stalin hug each other," Kouma said with a certain amount of awe in his voice.

"That bad, hm?" Kurumu drawled.

"No, I mean I've seen that before, down in Hell," Kouma clarified, wringing his hands, "this is literally the EXACT same feeling."

"Ranma, hi! What's everyYEEEE!" Tsukune, who had walked into the lobby from one of the peripheral offices, flinched back once he saw Keito swinging a giggling Tobaki around in the air like a woman might do to her young daughter. "What's going on here?"

"Try not to look directly at it," Ranma suggested as he stepped past the younger boy, following his own advice, "you might go blind or something."

"You made it! I'm so happy!" Tobaki cheered.

"It's so good to see you!" Keito cried. "I really thought we might not get to work together again!"

Tsukune watched the two loathsome abominations rub their cheeks together before turning his rather pale expression toward Ranma. "Ranma, tell me that's Keito's surprisingly nice twin sister you brought here and not who I think it is."

"Yeah, sooo... The recruitment didn't go all that well," Ranma admitted sheepishly. "Your whole 'justice before personal gain' thing wasn't very popular. Keito's the only person that stuck around who we didn't already plan on recruiting."

"I don't like it," Moka immediately chimed in as she stepped in next to Tsukune, "even if we put aside the fact that she attacked us before, she gives me the creeps."

"Seconded," Kurumu agreed as she sauntered up and latched onto Tsukune's arm, "I don't trust her one bit."

"Oh, come on now," Keito said suddenly, separating partially from Tobaki and revealing that she had overheard them, "isn't that just your own prejudice? I already said that I'd be willing to follow whatever new rules you put in place, so my previous... 'record' shouldn't be a problem."

"Things aren't quite that convenient," Tsukune deadpanned, "you can't just claim you're willing to play nice from now on and have your old job back."

"Oh? But isn't that exactly what others have done?" Keito asked, only barely managing to hide her smirk. "Rikishi is a well-known brute who is responsible for brutalizing dozens of other students for no other reason than because he enjoys it."

Chopper scratched the back of his head. "Is that not a good reason?"

"Gamaroshi has a litany of smoking allowance and fire safety violations behind him as well," Keito continued, pointing toward the accused hellhound.

"I beat up people too!" Kouma protested, "why does everybody seem to find my smoking more offensive than the violence?"

Keito didn't bother to answer him as she moved on. "Both of the girls clinging to Vice-Captain Saotome were witnessed tearing apart one side of a dorm in a fight that displayed a total disregard for property damage and bystanders."

"By the way, just so you know?" Kana said, her eyes still locked on Mizore. "The truce is over now."

"Yeah, I figured," Mizore responded coolly.

"Our little genius Sendo actually cast a lethal curse on Saotome, of all people, and from what I heard came far closer to killing him than any of the Enforcers did," Keito continued, gesturing to Yukari.

"Hey, that was an accident, kind of!" Yukari protested, "and Senpai probably wasn't in mortal danger anyway, maybe!"

Keito then opened her arms wide toward Tsukune and the two girls crowding him. "And even you all, if nothing else, are guilty of resisting arrest, assaulting members of the Protection Committee and ultimately attempting a violent revolt in order to usurp authority," the spider woman said with a hint of bitterness in her voice, "although those crimes are, ultimately, disregarded since you were successful."

She crossed her arms back over her chest. "I see nothing but miscreants and thugs all gathered and given a chance to serve our school properly under your moral guidance, Captain. Are you really going to refuse my participation simply because my wrongdoings endangered you personally?"

Tsukune's eyebrow twitched as he stared evenly at the dark-eyed woman, feeling the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He could instantly tell that he was dealing with a different kind of monster now, one who was both willing and capable of challenging him with words rather than muscle. By attacking Tsukune's moral superiority, she threatened to undermine the very thing that supposedly made him a better choice of leader than Kuyo. It was also something that the others would have a hard time helping him with, as most if not all of them - he thought the world of Moka, but feeding on your friends was hardly an act of higher morals - had dubious ethical records at best.

"That's... a lot of information," Tsukune admitted, nodding thoughtfully, "it almost makes me wonder how you found all that out. But instead I'm wondering why you knew all this and never did anything about it."

Keito shrugged her shoulders. "It was a different time, with different leadership and different priorities," she said as if it were of no consequence, though she could feel the focus of everyone's attention centered firmly on her again, "I was Kuyo's right hand, and gathered intelligence for his use. Without his orders, why would I act?"

"So you're claiming you were some hapless minion on a tight leash? I don't really buy that," Tsukune said as his eyes narrowed. "You see, what bothers me isn't so much that you tried to kill me - I get that a lot, unfortunately - but that you're obviously smart enough to know right from wrong and see exactly how corrupt your peers were and what a mess the campus was. Tobaki, as uncomfortable as I am with her being treasurer, doesn't even seem to understand that other creatures don't want to die. If you really want me to believe that you were just following orders rather than actively plotting and furthering the Enforcers' racket, you'll have to try harder."

Keito tried hard to keep from chewing her lip or showing any outside sign of nervousness as her mind raced. She had really expected her accusatory tirade to get her the job, and was fast running out of cards to play. 'As expected of a human. No fangs, claws or stingers, but they make awful good use of that mouth.'

"Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't," Keito said, running a hand through her hair, "but it isn't as if you have a case in which to arrest or punish me currently, so I'm taking the opportunity to turn over a new web."

"And you expect us to believe you?" Kurumu asked, eyebrows quirked.

"Of course, I have considerable knowledge that this new Committee would find... harmful," Keito said haltingly, "but threats would do me little good in this situation, and using that information may eventually lead to me being dismembered and fed to the troll. Currently I see complete and honest cooperation under your leadership as the best option available to me. I imagine that means reform and repentance, and so be it."

Keito almost broke into a smile as he saw Tsukune's annoyed expression change into a more doubtful one, but restrained herself. All she needed was one more push, but how to deliver it?

As it happened, her one and only remaining ally came to her rescue. Tsukune almost leapt back as Tobaki appeared before him, her hands clasped tightly together and her eyes large and dewy.

"PLEASE, Captain? Can't you PLEASE let Keito join? She said she'd follow the rules!" The yochlol begged.

"B-But, what about all the things she's done?" Tsukune asked.

Tobaki frowned. "Like what?"

Tsukune opened his mouth to speak, and then quickly closed it again as he realized something important: he didn't actually have anything on Keito. While the spider woman was suspicious, devious and callous enough that he could imagine her committing dozens of horrific crimes, the only thing he knew she had done was assault, and with a halfway-decent reason. And as she had already pointed out, that sort of charge wasn't exactly uncommon amongst his current team.

"... All right. We'll give it a shot," Tsukune said, pinching the bridge of his nose as Tobaki's eyes lit up.

"YES! Thank you!" The demon disguised as an elf cheered as she raced back and hugged a very relieved Keito.

Kurumu clicked her tongue as Moka looked doubtful, but both of them trusted Tsukune's judgment enough not to protest.

Tsukune, well aware that he had merely made a decision but feeling like he had just lost a battle of wills, coughed in his fist to regain everyone's attention. "Your membership in the new Protection Committee begins now. I'm not going to try and explain our position on murder to you, as I imagine you can figure it out yourself." Taking a deep breath, and generally sounding quite annoyed, Tsukune turned around and headed back toward his new office. "We'll be watching you, Keito. Step lightly."

"Stepping lightly is a spider's specialty," Keito said, fiercely holding down a smug expression as her new captain left with his women in tow. 'This is what happens when you put your ideals above your own judgment. You'll live to regret such weakness, Aono.'

"All right people, show's over!" Ranma suddenly called out. "Tobaki put together some spreadsheets that show your new duties and a few patrol routes, so we'll be taking shifts on those routes until things start to fall into place!"

As Chopper, Kouma, Kana, Yukari and Mizore all moved to check on the papers, Ranma turned toward Keito.

"As for you, since you seem to be pretty good at the whole sneaking and information dealing thing, you can be Yukari's assistant from now on."

Keito smiled wickedly. "Whatever you say, Vice-Captain."

"Call me Ranma. Or at least use a disrespectful nickname or an insult or something," Ranma demanded, "having you call me by a title just makes my skin crawl."

The spider woman snorted. "As you wish, you human-coddling brute."

"Better," Ranma said with approval. Then he leaned in a bit closer. "By the way, why didn't you mention me at all? When you were running through the list of crimes and stuff? You really couldn't think of anything?"

"Please," Keito scoffed, "you blasted the roof off of the student council hall with a TORNADO. Do I really need to bother pointing that out?"

"Always the tornado," Ranma grumbled. "All right Fangs, fine. But even though you may have talked your way around Tsukune, smooth talk isn't going to get you very far with me."

"I know," Keito admitted, "I have a different strategy for getting my way with you."

She then turned slightly so that Tobaki was between her and Ranma, and then turned the shorter girl around to face the martial artist.

Tobaki blinked innocently as Ranma recoiled. "Hm? What's wrong?"

"So that's how it's gonna be, is it?" Ranma grumbled as he backed away. "Fine. But I suggest you take Tsukune seriously. Underestimate humans and you'll regret it," the martial artist warned before walking off.

Keito refrained from making any threats or taunts of her own, not willing to push her luck after she had come so far.

"I'm really glad Captain Aono let you join us!" Tobaki gushed as she leaned back into the spider woman. "It would have been so boring otherwise! Plus all my new teammates seem to hate me just because I messed up at first and killed someone I wasn't supposed to."

"Yes, those humans get worked up over silly things like that," Keito confided as she rubbed the yochlol's head. "You did know he was a human, right?"

Tobaki blinked. "I kind of remember Kuyo going on about something like that in the infirmary. Which ones are they, again? Sometimes I get confused about which bipeds are which."

"The ones that we're being taught to act like," Keito deadpanned, "you know, weak, slow, reasonably intelligent, own the entire planet give or take some hidden portions tucked away in the wild and under the seas?"

Tobaki frowned. "But Ranma's a human, and he's not weak or slow."

Keito laughed heartily as she led Tobaki away, hugging the shorter girl tightly the whole way. "Saotome isn't a human, dear. Humans don't throw tornadoes or wrestle trolls into submission."

"Oh. Well, if you say so," Tobaki said doubtfully. "By the way, is that thing about other people not wanting to die true? It would explain why they always put up such a fuss while I'm killing them."

"That's a complicated question," Keito said somberly, "so you should let me decide whether or not a particular target minds being killed."

"Okay!" Tobaki beamed. "Thanks, Bis Sis! You're the best!"

"I know, Tobaki. I know," the arachnid said with a cruel smile.

* * *

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

(Several hours previous)

Ranma burst through the door of his physical science class with barely seconds to spare, tucking into a roll as he hit the floor and then bouncing up to land roughly in his seat.

"Made it!" the pigtailed boy cheered as he shifted about into a normal sitting position right as the bell for classes rang out.

Ranma was about to start taking out his books when he finally noticed that everyone around him was chuckling, and that Professor Richard's deep, generally malevolent voice was curiously absent.

As was the warlock himself, Ranma soon realized, and the martial artist flushed in embarrassment as he saw that the blackboard had "self-study" scrawled across it in blue chalk.

"Jumping the gun a little, aren't you, Saotome?" one of his neighbors chuckled.

"Dude! Careful!" the student next to that one hissed. "Saotome's an Enforcer now! You have to be careful what you say!"

Ranma snorted. "Relax, would ya? I'm not gonna do anything to you just for poking fun at me," he reassured the surrounding students, "and even if I was, I could just crack your skull across the wall whether I was part of the Committee or not, so that shouldn't make a difference."

"Oh. Uh... That's true, huh," the offending student said nervously, obviously cowed despite Ranma's assurance that he wasn't about to be punished.

"Hey, Saotome, there's something on the teacher's desk for you," another student pointed out.

Ranma stood up and looked over to the top of Richard's podium, frowning as he saw there was an envelope with his name on it.

"Hey, there any magic-users here?" Ranma asked as he approached the podium carefully. "This isn't some sort of magic trap, is it?"

A pudgy boy with round glasses leaned forward critically. "It doesn't look like it. But if you see anything about magical runes, don't read it."

Ranma tore open the envelope and read the fairly short letter inside.

"Hmph. Professor Psycho says I'm supposed to take attendance myself and tell everyone what pages to read for homework," Ranma grumbled.

He turned around and quickly scanned the classroom. "Wait... isn't everyone here?" he asked, surprised. He wouldn't have shown up if he'd known that Richard wasn't going to be there, and he was surprised that his monster classmates were more diligent. "Nobody left after seeing that class was pretty much canceled?"

"We can't be sure he wasn't scrying on us to check who was actually here," mumbled a girl from the front.

The pudgy student raised his hand. "Speaking of which, what IS the penalty for being late?"

Ranma glanced down at the note he was left. "A slow, painful death, same as everything else. Apparently he expects me to do that while he's busy wasting time on his own."

"Are... Are you going to?" Ranma's neighbor asked cautiously.

Ranma tossed the note over his shoulder, and it slowly fluttered through the air before landing in the trash bin. "It's a moot point if everyone showed up on time, right?"

"What about that guy that sits next to you?" The student pointed out, gesturing to the empty desk.

"Who?" Ranma asked.

"You know, the little kid? Pink hair? Resurrects from death?" The student continued.

Ranma was silent for several seconds. "I got nothing."

"You tossed him in a dumpster once after he was killed, before he finished resurrecting," a different student deadpanned.

"Like I can keep track of all the dead bodies I've lugged out of here," Ranma murmured, slouching against the podium. "Whatever. If he's not here I can't exactly punish him anyway, even if I wanted to. Let me write down the homework, and then I'm outta here."

* * *

Saffron's breath came unsteadily as he lay in the middle of a vast ring of intertwining magical runes, his shirt shredded to almost nothing while his arms were stretched to either side by ebony chains crackling with black lightning that sparked from the links as they writhed like living things.

Saffron was covered in small wounds, cuts and abrasions that flared and trembled with magical power straining to repair the damage even as malign forces from beyond the physical realm continued to hold them open.

The Phoenix king glared hatefully at his tormentor through the pain, minor as it was compared to the suffering he had endured in the past.

Richard stood above the battered immortal, seemingly oblivious to Saffron's unwavering gaze as he flipped through an old, yellowed tome.

"Ah, this IS a tricky one. I haven't seen a seal like this since the 80's," the warlock mumbled to himself as he perused the text.

Then he looked up. "That's the third century 80's, mind you. Oh, where does the time go?"

"Shut. Up." Saffron rasped painfully.

Richard seemed to be in no mood to listen, and continued flipping through the ancient book. "All right, I think I'm going to try to interact with the spell directly," he said, still looking at the book as he moved one hand toward Saffron's chest, "this won't hurt at all."

Saffron gasped in agony as Richard's claws plunged into his chest, causing the phoenix's skin to evaporate into a caustic black cloud as the hard, bone fingers dug deeper into his flesh.

"Oh, look at that. I guess I was wrong," Richard said pleasantly as Saffron grit his teeth against the pain, "oops!"

Then the warlock leaned over to speak directly into Saffron's ear. "By the way, don't tell anyone that I chained down a young boy, stripped him, and then forcibly entered him. People might think I'm a pervert or something."

"You're a twisted, sadistic psychopath!" Saffron snapped, his eyes flaring white.

"Exactly! I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea," the warlock said as he backed away. "All right, let's see if that did it."

Saffron howled in pain and fury as the chains over his arms started to rattle and crack, and Richard's eyebrow rose as the phoenix king's body started to swell amidst a pyre of white flame.

"Ha ha ha! Success!" Richard said as he raised his fists in the air. "Now I... I... uh..." he lowered his fists. "I forget exactly why I was doing this. It really doesn't seem like the next several minutes are going to turn out ideally for me."

"No," said Saffron as he staggered to his feet, his voice rich and deep as he finally stretched the arms of his fully matured adult form, "no they won't."


	14. Evil is Subjective

"Hi everyone! And welcome to the next chapter and the next wild guess at Ranma's species!" Shizuka Nekonome cheered.

"Today we have one of our less unstable instructors to give us her theory! May I present Riza Wildman!"

The redheaded half-werewolf gave a lazy wave as she stood behind Shizuka, one hand in her pocket.

"So what observations have you made about the ex-star of your club?" Shizuka asked eagerly.

"Well, my guess would have to be a dragon," Riza murmured, crossing her arms over her chest.

Shizuka looked surprised. "Oh, my! That's more than a cut above the guesses we've had so far! That alone would probably make him one of the five most powerful creatures on campus!"

"I know, right?" Riza said, nodding. "Specifically, he'd be a Chinese dragon. The clothes, the fancy martial arts, and even the tornadoes make sense that way."

Then Riza smirked. "It also explains why he's so in line with the rule about disguises. If he transformed even once, he'd be able to completely destroy anyone short of a few of the faculty. None of the other students could even pretend to stand a chance, and then-"

"Hey, I have a question," Shizuka said suddenly.

Riza blinked. "Huh? What?"

"You're a half-werewolf, right?" the nekomata asked, "so you're a quarter wolf?"

Riza raised an eyebrow. "What? What are you-"

"Well, the word 'werewolf' is a compound word, composed of the old English word 'were', meaning man, and wolf, which makes the translation literally 'man-wolf', which is in line with the older legends regarding your species as being a hybrid of wolves and humans, usually created by a curse or disease," Shizuka said, sounding curiously knowledgeable as she explained the question, "so it's strange that a werewolf and a human wouldn't make a normal werewolf or a normal human in the first place, you know? So does that mean you're a quarter wolf and the rest of you is human, or is werewolf really a unique species on its own?"

Riza stared at the nekomata, her expression utterly perplexed. "Well, looks like SOMEONE majored in classic literature," the redhead mumbled as she turned her head away.

"Do you think I'd be in this dump if I had a REAL degree?" Shizuka deadpanned. "Anyway, do you have an answer?"

"Nah. It never really came up in the original manga," Riza said, shrugging.

"Oh. Well, I was just curious. Goodbye everybody!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Surgeon General's Warning: viewing of the following materials has been known to cause various side effects, apparently including nose bleeds, and as such has been flagged by the FDA as a possible instigator of severe kidney damage. If you experience laughter lasting for more than four hours, contact your physician immediately.  
Just to make sure we have all the legal angles covered, this story also probably causes cancer.  
Have a nice day!

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), _'Inner Moka'_

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 13  
Evil is Subjective

* * *

"All right everyone!" Tsukune said, thrusting a hand into the air, "you have your assignments, right? You understand your job and your powers of arrest?"

Standing in front of the young human was the rest of the New Enforcers, with Ranma at the front of the group while Tobaki, whose job was administrative, stood next to Tsukune with her glasses on. They all either nodded silently or mumbled affirmations that they knew what to do, prompting Tsukune to continue.

"Good! And finally, you all know what 'investigate' means, right?" Tsukune asked.

Chopper immediately raised his hand, but Kouma leaned over and started whispering in his ear.

Chopper subsequently put his hand down and flashed a thumbs-up.

"Then we can begin at last!" Tsukune said, sweeping one arm to the side, "now let's go make our campus a better place!"

Most of the New Enforcers immediately thrust their fists into the air with a wild cheer, while Keito simply rolled her eyes and Tobaki watched the proceedings in respectful silence.

After that though, everyone but Tsukune and Tobaki filed out of the room, most of them eager to see what new challenges awaited them in their tasks.

Hr

Kurumu strode through the hall purposefully with her Protection Committe armband proudly on display, her gaze sweeping left and right to search for any signs of wrongdoing.

She had to admit, although she had her doubts at first, this job seemed infinitely better than being used as trap fodder for Professor Jadeite, and as she started her first patrol she began to feel a bit excited about the job for its own sake, too. Here she was, bringing Tsukune's vision of a fair, safe campus to realization after overthrowing the cruel, corrupt despot! How romantic!

She also rather liked the change in the attention she got. While Kurumu normally turned heads wherever she went, the attention usually came with a few wolf whistles or lewd comments as well. And although she didn't exactly dislike such shallow attention, having people straighten nervously as you walked by and keep a fearful silence gave the same boost to her self-esteem without the slightly scummy feeling that she got whenever random boys were undressing her with their eyes.

Not that she expected they had stopped doing that, but at least they seemed to be discreet about it now.

Kurumu frowned as she saw what looked like a confrontation going on down the hall. A large male student who was almost the size of Chopper was standing over a much smaller boy who seemed to be rooting nervously through his pockets.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Kurumu demanded, walking right up behind the larger boy and planting her fists on her hips. "You there! Back off!"

The bigger student glanced contemptuously behind him, turning just enough to see that he was being confronted by some busty girl but not enough to glimpse her armband.

"Oi, mind your own business, Tits," he growled out before turning back to his prey.

He was far less apathetic after feeling several razor-sharp claws stab into his side.

"GWAARGH!" The thug jolted forward as his victim darted out of the way, blood seeping slowly from his wound.

"That's MISS Tits to you, lowlife," Kurumu snapped as a vein throbbed on her head, "and since you brought it up, it IS my business."

Turning himself around while leaning against the wall, the ruffian glanced at his assailant and was extremely dismayed to see the white armband that marked her as an officer of the Protection Committee.

"All right! All right! Sorry!" the brute gasped as he held his bleeding flank, "I'll back down, all right?"

"Good. I'll let your scars be your citation, so get lost and don't cause any more trouble!" the succubus demanded.

As the miscreant limped off, Kurumu turned toward his victim, her eye sparkling. "Did you SEE that? I was SO COOL!"

The victimized student sweatdropped as he adjusted his glasses. "Er, yes, you certainly were. Thank you very much."

"Oh, it was nothing at all," Kurumu preened with her chin up as the boy pulled out his wallet, "a thug like him is... Uh... What are you doing?"

The boy counted out several bills from his wallet as he responded, "Rescue fee. Plus the protection money from the chemistry club for this month."

Kurumu blinked. "Protection money?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I meant 'service fees,'" he explained. "You're new, right? The Protection Committee charges service fees to all of the bigger-budget clubs so that you can finance your racke-excuse me, ACTIVITIES that keep our school safe and orderly."

Kurumu frowned as she thought over that explanation. Somehow it seemed a bit fishy, but at the same time she couldn't think of any particular objection to the argument, especially when it was coming from the person paying her.

"Well, okay, if you say so. Thank you for your support," Kurumu said, bowing slightly.

The chemistry club member folded the cash in half, and then grabbed the big bow that decorated Kurumu's sweater-vest, tugging her shirt collar open wide enough for him to slip the bills into her cleavage as Kurumu stood shock-still, too stunned by such a brazen act to do anything about it until he was finished.

Her eyes narrowed as the boy quickly let go of her, and she grabbed hold of her collar tightly. "Hey! Why did you put it there?"

"Would you like me to take it out?" the boy asked with an eager smile.

Kurumu didn't bother to answer, instead turning on her heel to find a girls' room so that she could retrieve her earnings without having to fondle herself in the middle of the hallway.

* * *

"And so I was hoping that now that we have a new Committee, I might be able to talk you into doing some actual WORK."

Mizore tried to fight off a yawn as she sat behind her new desk in the lobby of the Protection Committee, overseeing the line of students that had come to register complaints and open investigations with the New Enforcers.

At least, the line was composed of students. The person currently ranting at the rather sedate young woman and her temporary partner was the Dark Liege, a member of the faculty.

"All right Miss Liege, please just calm down and tell us what happened," Moka said from where she was sitting next to Mizore. She had been assigned to help Mizore with her new task, partially because they expected a deluge of work after it was announced that there was a new Committee, and partially because Mizore didn't strike anyone as being interested in or well-suited to her assigned task.

True to form, Mizore wasn't even trying to deal with the people in line, and simply filled out forms silently while Moka asked the necessary questions.

At least, Moka hoped she was filling out forms. Given that Mizore sometimes kept writing on the same sheet of paper as two or three students took their turns to offer their complaints, the vampiress was starting to suspect Mizore was just doodling the whole time.

"It's my soul shards. There are five pieces of extremely valuable crystal that were stolen from my desk several weeks ago," the buxom teacher said, her hands planted petulantly on her hips.

Moka nodded. "I understand. Do you have an estimate for how much the shards are worth?"

The Dark Liege frowned. "Well, imagine all the money on the entire planet..."

Moka blinked.

"... Now imagine all that money BURNING, because if my soul shards fall into the wrong hands it could result in worldwide catastrophe, and cash will only be useful as kindling and toilet paper!" the blonde insisted, slamming her hands flat against the table as she leaned over the two teenagers. Incidentally this gave the pair of schoolgirls a perfect view down her blouse, not that Mizore was paying attention or that Moka appreciated the vantage point.

Moka sweatdropped as Mizore continued scribbling. "So they're quite valuable, then. We'll work out an estimate later. You said they were stolen from your desk?"

"Yes, that was the last place I had them," the Dark Liege groused as she placed a slip of paper on the counter. "Here's a few sketches and notes on what type of gems they are. I expect you'll open a case?"

Moka nodded as she took the paper. "This is very helpful, thank you! We'll get right on this and let you know the moment we have any information, Miss Liege!"

"That's Dark Liege, dear. The name is its own honorific," the Dark Liege expained as she straightened. "Well, you've been far more helpful than the last few bozos doing this job, so you have my thanks. Good luck!"

As the curvaceous devil sauntered off, Moka leaned over toward Mizore. "Did you get all that? That was a teacher, so it's really important that we get all the details right! Especially if the world might really hang in the balance!"

Mizore mutely held up the paper she had been working on, revealing that she had, in fact, been doodling, though it seemed the topic of her doodles had been the case being described to them... to an extent. The drawing featured the entire world sitting upon a burning pile of money while two extremely cartoony figures exchanged mighty blows atop the globe. One was the Dark Liege, her oversexed (if not quite perfect) human form boasting wings and massive claws, while the other seemed to be Ranma, who was encircled by glowing jewels.

It was actually a pretty good art piece, although Moka was in no position to appreciate it.

"Why are you drawing? We have a serious duty to take care of!" Moka scolded the snow fairy. "Also, what does Ranma have to do with the missing jewels?"

"Secret," Mizore mumbled as she put the form away in a file folder and pulled out another blank investigation case form.

Before Moka could continue lecturing her current partner, the next student walked up and slammed a piece of paper down onto the desk, instantly securing her attention.

"Yes! How can... I... help you..." Moka trailed off as she stared up at the student. It was a female student, that much seemed obvious, with a perfectly normal-looking body wearing a perfectly normal uniform.

The girl's head, which appeared to be composed of snow with small pebbles to make a pair of eyes and a smiling mouth, was decidedly not normal.

Moka silently took the note as Mizore started scribbling again. "So... it seems like something was lost or stolen?" Moka couldn't make out much more than that, as the writing was extremely haphazard, but the girl nodded mutely.

"Okay, but... you're aware of the rules concerning human disguises, right? Is there a reason your head is like that?"

_Bam! Bam! Bam!_ The aggrieved student started slamming her hand down next to her note noisily, finally disturbing Mizore enough for her to look up to see who was making such a racket.

"Ah, I remember you," Mizore said suddenly as she sat up, startling Moka with her sudden participation.

"You do?" Moka said in surprise, glancing at the note again. "Ah... It seems she lost her head somewhere?"

"Yeah," Mizore confirmed, "out during that freak snowstorm the other day."

Suddenly Moka's eyes widened. "Wait! Were you that girl who Jin froze and then decapitated?"

The girl started to nod rapidly, which started to cause the snowball mounted on her shoulders to tilt over before the girl's hands shot up to hold it steady.

"I don't understand, though. How did you survive?" Moka gasped, "we saw him break your head clean off!"

"Hi everyone! Are you ready to learn about Dullahans?" Shizuka Nekonome asked brightly as she slapped a hand against a long chalkboard.

"Dullahans are European monsters known as 'headless knights' or 'headless horsemen' owing to their most obvious trait: their head isn't attached to their necks!"

On the chalkboard was a drawing of a suit of armor with its hands reaching out to probe its surroundings awkwardly, with the helmet being crushed under its foot and muttering profanities.

"Dullahans are said to be the spirits of people who were decapitated, and wander the land in search for their heads! It's said that until they find their original heads, they'll never be able to rest in peace! In their quests to locate their missing noggin, the dullahan travels far and wide, often by wagon or horseback, which is why they're often known as the headless knights or horsemen."

Shizuka shrugged. "While that's more or less true, most of those who've encountered a dullahan note that they DO, in fact, have a head, although they often carry them under their arm rather than on their necks as is 'traditional'."

Shizuka pointed to the head in her drawing. "In most creatures the head houses many important organs and senses, and the dullahan is no different! So even a dullahan needs a head! However, since its original one is perpetually lost, it usually takes a loaner!"

Shizuka moved over to the next drawing that featured a very scared and confused orc as a headless suit of armor twisted its head off.

"Other people are usually attached to their heads - save the odd hydra, who's always good for one or two - so the dullahan inevitably has to take the head by force, which has also given them a reputation as bloody harbingers, riding from place to place and usually killing but a single person in the dead of night. After that the dullahan will carry around the stolen head, using it as their own until they lose it, it gets damaged, or it starts to rot away because it lacks the undying magic of the body."

Shizuka waved brightly. "Well, I hope you understand these headless heroes a little better now! Goodbye!"

Moka and Mizore stared behind them as Shizuka waved, and the former awkwardly waved back.

"Ah, yes... Thank you, Miss Nekonome," Moka mumbled, "I... didn't know that."

"Where did that chalkboard come from? How'd she get it in here without us noticing?" Mizore asked aloud as the feline teacher wheeled said chalkboard out of the room.

_Bam!_ The dullahan girl slammed her hands on the table again, regaining the girls' attentions.

"Okay, so you want us to find the head that Jin broke off, is that it?" Moka asked.

As the distressed schoolgirl tried to nod her snowman head without it tipping off, Mizore frowned.

"You mean you don't like the head I built for you?" Although Mizore's voice was a bored monotone as usual, Moka definitely detected a hint of sadness in her question.

The girl didn't do anything at first, but then reached up to take out the pebbles that formed the corners of her mouth, and then rearranged them lower to turn the smile into a frown.

Mizore rubbed her chin. "Hmmm... What if I got you a carrot for a nose? Would that help?"

The dullahan promptly snatched a pair of pens from the desk, and then stuck them over her eyes with an inward slant to make a pair of angry-looking eyebrows.

"Never mind that, we'll start looking for your head immediately," Moka interjected hastily, "thank you for coming to us with this problem! Also, I'm VERY sorry none of us checked on you after the battle with Jin! It won't happen again!"

The dullahan girl made her best attempt at a shrug, and then promptly took out a pair of dark sunglasses and a cane. Sticking the sunglasses onto the snowball atop her neck, she turned around and slowly made her way toward the lobby entrance, using the cane to search in front of her for obstacles.

Moka and Mizore watched her go, seemingly fascinated by the sight, until the latter turned toward the former. "Wait... If that head doesn't work... how did she hear what we were saying?"

* * *

"Yo! Surprise inspection!"

The unexpected shout was all the warning that the art teacher, Hitomi Ishigami, got before the door to her classroom burst open, revealing a massive boy with a Protection Committee sweatband on his wrist.

"Wh-What? What are you doing? Class is in session!" Hitomi snapped, gesturing to the rows of surprised and confused students sitting at tables in the middle of the room.

"Yeah, I know," Chopper said dismissively as he stepped right by the teacher, his head swiveling left and right, "like I said, surprise inspection. The point is that you're not expecting it."

The troll ignored Hitomi's sputtering protests as he started looking around the room, noting the shelves full of art supplies and the rows of lockers next to them.

"Some students have gone missin' from your classes, so I came here to check for clues," Chopper said as he started rooting through the art supplies.

"You could have informed me!" Hitomi said angrily. Her hair, which was tied into numerous thin braids, seemed to shake and quiver as she spoke, as if the braids themselves were agitated.

"What part of 'surprise' don't you understand, Teach?" Chopper grumbled as he moved to the lockers.

The first one was empty, so he tried the next one, which was full of towels.

The third one was locked, and Hitomi chewed her lip briefly.

"I'm not sure I have the key to that particular locker on hand," she said, "but if you-"

The sound of tearing metal interrupted her, and the art teacher's eyes bugged out as Chopper tossed the twisted and broken lock onto the floor.

Chopper opened up the locker, and was surprised to see a life-sized stone statue of a schoolgirl standing there, her expression locked in surprise and horror.

"... Huh." Chopper rubbed his oversized chin as he stared at the statue, "that's weird."

"Wh-What's weird about me taking up sculpting?" Hitomi said as her hair braids continued to quiver dangerously.

"Naw, it's just weird that this statue looks exactly like one of the chicks that went missin'," Chopper explained as he drew a photo from his pocket and glanced between the statue and the photo.

"Yes, well... I made it as a memorial of poor Miss Kajimoto, who vanished without a trace," Hitomi said, her voice wavering only slightly as she felt all her students staring at her, "I call it 'Demise of Naivete'."

Chopper stared very closely at the face. "Is this statue... crying?"

Hitomi hesitated a long time before she smiled awkwardly. "It's avant-garde."

"Oh... Okay," Chopper said, shrugging. "Well, I can't find any clues here. If you get any more information about the missing students, you know where to go," the troll said as he closed the locker and made his way to the door, bored and disappointed.

"Of course. Thank you for your hard work," Hitomi Ishigami said, her mouth twitching only slightly as she forced a smile for the wrestler.

As soon as Chopper was out the door, the art teacher breathed a sigh of relief. 'Well, that was a close one. I didn't know that the Protection Committee did surprise inspections... or normal inspections, for that matter.'

"Miss Ishigami?" one of her female students said suddenly as she raised her hand, looking nervous, "I don't think I'm going to be at my after-school session today... or ever again."

Hitomi hid her annoyance fairly well as she kept her false smile plastered over her face. "Oh, that's a shame. Good luck on your charcoal drawings, Miss Hajimata!" 'Damn Enforcers. I need to get bigger locks...'

* * *

"Well, this ought to be fun," a wiry boy grumbled as he took his seat around the donut-shaped table (now boasting evidence of significant repairs) that served the student council.

"What?" asked Matano, the vice president, as he took his own seat, "something going on today?"

"The new Protection Committee is sending in their thug today; Volos' replacement. Can't wait," the first member said as he started flipping through a folder, other student representatives filing in behind him.

Matano's mood instantly dipped. "Ah. Yes. I hope it's not that Saotome fellow. We'd have to chain everything down to keep it from getting swept up in all the tornadoes."

"Well, he's not THAT bad," said another student class rep as he took his seat, "and Aono seems like a good guy, so maybe he'll be kept in line?"

"You're the rep for his class, right?" asked the first councilman, "did you hear that they already killed off Jikan? He was trying to dismiss the last of the old Protection Committee, and he got torn apart!"

"Tell me about it," interjected another councilman as he walked past to his seat, "I was terrified when I was assigned to check up on him. Still kinda surprised they let me go without even a warning."

"Well, there might've been... you know, circumstances," offered the representative for Ranma and Tsukune's class, "and they DID fill out all the requisite paperwork. It doesn't mean that Aono's going to turn tyrant on us."

"How perfectly naive," the first representative snapped as the last few members of the council took their seats. "These guys are all the same. Give him a taste of real power and a few burly bastards like Saotome to back him up, and Aono will be treating the entire school as his personal cash cow, just like Kuyo. Soon Aono will have one of his thugs lording over us during our meetings, and things will right back to 'normal,' mark my words."

The disgruntled councilman fell silent as Hokuto, the student council president, stood up and clapped his hands for attention.

"All right, then! Is everyone here? If so, we can begin today's session!"

_Bam!_ The redhead raised an eyebrow as the double-doors at the entrance suddenly burst open, admitting the last participant for the meeting.

"I'm here! Sorry I'm late!" Moka shouted, bowing profusely before she started moving toward the only empty seat. "I was helping someone else on the Committee! It won't happen again!"

Matano turned toward the disgruntled council member he was speaking to before. "Well, at least the tyrant sends the prettiest thugs to keep us under his thumb."

"Aono Tsukune is a PRINCE of a man, and you shut your filthy, blasphemous mout if you think to suggest otherwise," snapped back the councilman as his eyes tracked the gorgeous pink-haired girl across the chamber. "Finally, a reason to actually GO to these meetings!"

* * *

Keito yawned as she walked into the lobby of the Protection Committee offices, having completed her patrol at last.

All told, she had seen four instances of assault and robbery, one incident of a student eating what she could only guess used to be another student, and there was someone screaming an awful lot inside the girls' locker room despite the fact that no one should have been in there during that time period.

All those facts were filed away in her head to be used or ignored as necessary. She could have easily stopped most of the incidents, of course, but she couldn't find any reason to bother. There was the issue of earning enough trust from Tsukune that he wasn't actively looking for a reason to get rid of her, but it was precisely because she was so distrusted that she didn't even want to bother; if her culprit decided to lie or try to implicate her, then her "compatriots" were almost certain to believe him over her.

There would be a time for earning trust. For now, it was enough that she had her position and didn't have to actually work.

Keito was just opening the door to her office when she spotted a small, scuttling creature out of the corner of her eye.

She was quite surprised to see a giant spider just a bit bigger than a house cat crawling leisurely out of the room that had served as a training room whenever Jin saw fit to drill the members of the compliance squad.

Her curiosity piqued, she walked over to the lesser arachnid and then leaned over to pick it up.

"Ah! Ah! No! That's not food!" Ranma shouted, suddenly emerging from the doorway and startling the spider woman. "Don't eat that!"

Keito raised an eyebrow as she took up the giant spider underneath the thorax before bringing it up to her chest the way one would a small dog or cat. "I don't think you need to be concerned about this little thing harming me."

"I wasn't talking to him," Ranma deadpanned as he crossed his arms, "don't eat any of my spiders."

A vein popped up on Keito's head, and the giant spider hissed as it sensed her irritation. "Are you an idiot? Just what do you take me for?"

"A really big spider handling a less big spider," Ranma said simply. "It took me some time to teach 'em not to eat each other, so I figure you're completely beyond help."

Keito quickly decided that she had questions that needed answering that took priority over her aggravation at her vice-captain. "What do you mean you taught them? What could YOU teach anybody?"

Rather than answering the shallow insult, Ranma snapped his fingers and shouted, "Come!"

The spider immediately scrambled up onto Keito's shoulder and leapt onto Ranma's chest, to Keito's utter astonishment. She was even more surprised that Ranma didn't so much as flinch as the arachnid landed on him and started scuttling up his body and onto his shoulder.

"Of course, that's just for starters," Ranma said in the smuggest tone he could manage as he ran a hand gently over the spider's hairy abdomen, "I'm in the middle of a training session right now."

"Oh, I have GOT to see this," Keito quipped as she approached the room. "The idea of a moron like you actually enforcing your will over arachnids has to be one of the most incredible and unnatural things in this world. I could hardly miss my chance to watch such a farce."

"Yeah, sure. Come on," Ranma mumbled as he re-entered the room.

Certainly, Keito had heard that Ranma and Tsukune both got on well with spiders, but that was where her intel on the subject faltered. The fact that her beastly brethren didn't kill and eat the boys as she would have gladly done in their place wasn't of particular concern to her, and she had never imagined that either of them had actually taken to TRAINING them like mere pets.

And even if she had considered it, the fact that it was Ranma the brute rather than Tsukune the hapless diplomat doing it STILL made the whole idea laughable.

That said, Keito wasn't laughing as she entered the training room and saw what was going on.

Nearly two dozen giant spiders, ranging in size from as big as a large rat to as big as a large dog, scuttled about the training area, spinning webs and crawling over obstacle courses made of stacked-up chairs, tubs of water, and layers of grease to render some surfaces too slick to climb. At the far end a group was apparently doing attack drills, launching themselves furiously at a row of cloth training dummies already covered in puncture wounds.

Yukari was at the end of the obstacle course, and as one dog-sized spider successfully clambered over two parallel bars suspended over tubs of water, the young witch reached into a sack next to her and - somehow - pulled out a live muskrat that she tossed in front of the beast. It wasted no time in leaping upon the confused mammal, causing Yukari to cringe at the grisly act of nature.

Aside from the area with the training dummies, Kana sat on a chair reading a book while her mouth occasionally moved wordlessly. At least, it seemed to be wordless, but Keito then realized that at about the same time the training dummies would shout something, a function that she was sure Jin had never needed or wanted. In a perfect sequence straight down the room, the targets would break out in villainous laughter, demand money, meow, or ask why Ranma hadn't done his homework.

"So? Whaddya think?" Ranma said as he continued stroking the hairy beast that had settled atop his arm.

"I'm disgusted and dismayed," Keito deadpanned, "but I'll save hate and anger for after you explain exactly what I'm looking at, here."

Ranma seemed slightly put out by her attitude, but went on to explain. "Well, you know how real police have K-9 teams?"

"No," Keito replied irritably, "what the blazes are you talking about?"

Ranma sighed in that way that Yukari sometimes did when she tried to explain needlessly complicated things to Kurumu. "In the human world, human police keep teams of dogs to help them out."

"Then make Gamaroshi do it," Keito snapped, "why are you making spiders do your dirty work?"

"Well, what else are you good for?" Yukari quipped as she pulled out a raccoon from her bag and then sent it flailing at another spider that navigated the obstacle course successfully.

"Shut up, pest," Keito snarled at the young witch, "it's absurd that spiders should have to serve something like you."

"Said the spider serving something like me," Yukari deadpanned.

"All right, that's enough," Ranma interjected before Keito could come up with an appropriately poisonous comeback, "stop your complaining, it's not like the hairy freaks seem to mind. And we could use the help too, since we're a bit short-staffed."

Keito seethed quietly as she watched the training continue, and then made an incoherent snarling noise.

At least, it was incoherent to the various two-legged, warm-blooded animals in the room. The spider on Ranma's arm quivered at the noise, and its fangs wiggled threateningly as it clung more tightly to him.

Keito's eyes narrowed, noting the lack of biting or surprised screaming. "I'm honestly surprised," she mumbled, "they really see you as their master."

"Of course they do," Yukari said, "they're way smarter than you."

Once again, Ranma stepped in before Keito and Yukari could start slinging insults, mostly because he wanted the spider woman out of the way. "Look, if you're not going to help with the training, then you're just in the way. Why don't you call it a day?" asked the pigtailed boy.

"Not before you clear up one more thing," Keito said in a deadly serious tone, "there's something that's been bothering me ever since I came in here."

"Yeah, and what's that?" Yukari asked as started shaking her Bag of Tricks upside-down to see if there were any more animals left to be summoned for food.

Keito pointed toward the corner of the room where the giant spiders were pouncing on training dummies. "Why are all those dummies made up to look like Miss Nekonome Shizuka?"

Neither Ranma nor Yukari said anything immediately, and Kana lowered her head so that her face was better hidden by her book.

"... I don't know what you're talking about," Ranma said evenly as he glanced to the side, refusing to make eye contact.

"It IS a little suspicious, Senpai," Yukari admitted.

"Hurry up and get more food for the spiders," Ranma ordered, intent on letting the topic go unresolved, "we need to start feeding the ones at the training dummies. Keito, get lost. You're a bad influence to the other spiders."

Keito snorted derisively as she turned on her heel. "Whatever you say, cretin."

* * *

Tobaki (sans glasses) stretched her arms over her head as she left the Protection Committee offices, having completed far more work in the past hour than she had ever performed in a single day under Kuyo.

Not that she was strictly satisfied with the results, as the reason for her having so much to do were the massive budget cuts to their department. When Moka had returned from the student council session, she reported that the council had decided to "review" the Protection Committee's budget for any potential "efficiency savings".

As it turned out, the previous budget was VERY inefficient.

The budget used to cover a great variety of critical supplies and activities that Kuyo insisted were necessary for maintaining morale, such as uniforms, supplies, office furniture, weapons, leisure items and luxuries for when the Committee was "working", personal salaries for the higher-ranked Enforcers, catering costs for the weekly office parties, a dry ice subsidy for the Enforcers who liked their offices kept at below freezing temperatures, life insurance premiums for the lower-ranked members that the officers would bet were going to get themselves killed, extra maintenance crew to clean up after Keito's webbing, Tobaki's bodily sludge and the lazy Enforcers who were too picky to devour their kills, and of course a stipend for Kuyo's XBox Live subscription.

That list had been pared down considerably.

Even taking into account that some of those items were no longer wanted (from what she had gathered, none of the New Enforcers were avid gamers), she still had to apply massive cuts to parts of the Committee's activities that she would have liked to see preserved.

Really, what irked Tobaki was less that their budget had been cut and more that Moka had apparently let it go without any resistance.

'Maybe the others are right; she does seem pretty useless. What does she think her job is? And Captain Aono let it go without so much as a reprimand! Rookies.'

Nonetheless, she had done HER job properly, and was taking a break to eat. Somebody had to get the real work done, after all.

"Tobaki! Yo!"

The dark-skinned girl turned around at the call, and she brightened as she saw two friends of hers approaching from the hall.

"Akuna! Tsuna! Hi!" she called back, waving happily to the girls. "I was just about to go eat!"

"Oh, we're just in time, then!" said Akuna, a rather bloated girl of average height with sharp, saw-like teeth and an almost permanent grin. "Tsuna has this guy she's fallen for from class 2-D."

Tobaki brightened. "Really? That's so exciting!"

Tsuna, a short, wiry girl with shoulder length black hair that obscured her eyes smiled shyly. "He's on the cricket team. He just looks... DELICIOUS." The last word was spoken with an almost otherwordly snarl, and two bright pinpricks of white light were visible through her hair.

Akuna chuckled as her own eyes started to change color to a blazing crimson. "Yeah, so we thought we'd corner him before practice, force ourselves on him, and eat him alive! Maybe at the same time. Depends on how good he is. You want in?"

Tobaki was about to enthusiastically agree to join them when she suddenly thought of her position as a New Enforcer, and the new expectations that she was working under.

"Actually, I think that might conflict with some of the school rules," Tobaki said, scratching her chin as her brow furrowed.

"Oh, come on!" Akuna said, sounding exasperated, "when did you get all Lawful! Cut loose and have some fun! We're demons, girl!"

Tobaki frowned at her friend. "Akuna, you know that I'm not like Mom! I came to this school so I could choose my own life in the human world, and if we're going to learn to survive, we can't just ignore the rules!"

After she finished admonishing the other demon, however, her expression faltered slightly. "That said, I AM awfully hungry, and a free meal would be nice. Our budget just got chopped up like you wouldn't believe..."

_Poof!_ A chibi version of Keito appeared on Tobaki's right shoulder, carrying a pitchfork.

"It's fine, it's fine!" the chibi-Keito said, crossing her arms. "What Aono doesn't know won't hurt him! It'll only hurt some loser you've probably never met! As long as the captain doesn't find out about your involvement, it doesn't matter!"

As Tobaki considered that point, a small puff of smoke over her left shoulder heralded the appearance of a chibi Tsukune who had a halo floating over his head.

"No way! You can't get involved in this! Tsukune is the captain, and he laid down the law! If you simply ignore rules and orders because you feel like it, you're no different from all the mindless horrors that sit around for eons in caverns and dungeons, waiting to be skewered by wandering adventurers! Is that what you want? Or do you want to be more than some heavily armed human's morning exercise?"

Tobaki frowned deeply as she tilted her head.

Chibi-Keito snorted. "Oh, get real! A crime is only a crime if it's reported and investigated, you know! There's no reason to get so worked up over one little killing!"

"And yet, Tsukune DID get worked up over one little killing," chibi-Tsukune countered, "and the only way to truly make sure he doesn't find out about this one is to not do it to begin with."

Tobaki nodded reluctantly. "So... maybe if they kill him instead of me..."

"Absolutely not!" chibi-Tsukune shouted, his halo glowing brighter as chibi-Keito shielded her eyes irritably. "If you killing innocent people is wrong, why would it be okay to stand by and do nothing as other people do it? You may be gullible and naive, but you're not stupid, Tobaki! Captain Aono said killing is not allowed, and explained all the exceptions! He gave you a chance even after you messed up, so are you really going to betray him just so you can save your lunch money?"

Chibi-Keito growled as she covered her ears, glaring at her angelic counterpart. "Yeesh, your little imaginary version is just as annoying and preachy as the real thing. Are you seriously going to let this worthless sack of meat push you around?"

"Uh... what's with the little people on her shoulders?" Tsuna whispered to Akuna, her head tilting to one side to an alarming degree.

"Internal debate. Give her a minute," the other demon advised.

Tobaki suddenly broke out of the trance that she had briefly drifted into, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at Akuna and Tsuna, who were giving her odd looks as they waited for an explanation.

"No way. I'm putting a stop to this now," the yochlol said firmly, one eye glowing a deep, dark red.

"Whaaaaaat?" Tsuna moaned, tilting her head to the other side.

"You can't kill that guy. Apparently, murder is wrong, and as a member of the Protection Committee I cannot kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong themselves, nor can I allow someone else to do so," Tobaki said, squaring her shoulders and looking surprisingly intimidating for a petite elven girl.

"Are you serious?" Akuna grumbled.

"I'm serious," Tobaki confirmed, "even if you're my friends, you can't break the rules as you see fit."

As she stared down her friends, Tobaki felt an unfamiliar feeling well up inside the mass of horrific viscous fluids that more or less acted as her heart. 'How about that, Captain? I've upheld your rules and maintained the rule of law, and even resisted the pressure to look the other way for my friends! You would be so proud of me!'

"Soooo..." Tsuna hissed, her head tilting to the other side, "can we still rape him?"

"I don't see why not," Tobaki said, shrugging. "If you can wait until after lunch, I'll join you!"

"Okay, sure!"

* * *

Tsukune adjusted his tie nervously as he approached the gym, steeling himself for the conflict to come.

Despite a few offers of help and much worry from Kurumu and Moka, he was out alone in his mission, as was the cornerstone of his plan.

The goal was simple: to put a stop to the fight club's bullying and disruptive behavior.

Ranma had insisted that the way to do it was a showdown with Riza Wildman, while Yukari had suggested that thrashing the individual members in a massive show of force would eventually weaken the club to the point where it couldn't hold its turf, which was the explicit goal of the group.

Keito hadn't volunteered any ideas, but given that she was around when the last fight club membership was dealt with, Tsukune was sure she had a few.

But he had held his ground and insisted on trying peaceful negotiation first. Specifically WITHOUT a bodyguard.

The reasoning was simple: the fight club was motivated almost entirely by battle-lust. If he were to march into their midst with powerful challengers in tow, they would have sensed an attempt to intimidate them, which would have broken down negotiations and started a battle... That is, if they didn't attack immediately purely for the sake of getting their fight.

With only him around, there was absolutely no chance of a fight (although there was still the uncomfortably high chance of there being a beating) and thus they were far more likely to at least hear him out.

That was the logic behind it, anyway. He had to admit though, as he neared the training area staked out by the club of battle-hungry monsters, he was feeling less and less certain of his plan, and more and more keenly aware of how much he appreciated Ranma's company.

"Everything's going to be okay, Tsukune," the young human mumbled to himself as he stepped up to the doors, "you've dealt with these... 'people' before. They're not bad, necessarily, just reckless and energetic! You've gotten your way by talking sense into them before, and you can do it again!"

Feeling slightly better after his pep talk - and thinking that maybe Yukari had the right idea about this "rhetoric" thing - Tsukune pushed his way through the door.

"Excuse me! I'm from-"

_Whap!_ Before Tsukune could even get a good look into the room, his ankles were clipped hard, sending him face-first onto the floor.

"Guh!" He grunted as someone stomped on his back immediately afterward, driving the air out of his lungs.

"Huh. Well, that was easy," said a male voice above him. "Told you there was someone outside talking to himself."

"A little too easy," a girl behind him said, "I don't think this guy's actually a fighter at all."

"You're right!" Tsukune gasped out as he twisted his head to try and see what was going on. "Not a fighter! Definitely! Just here to talk!"

In addition to the boy and girl above him, he could now see that there were others from the fight club breaking off from their training to come see what all the fuss was about.

"Hey, look! Another Enforcer! You bagged him!"

"That's not just any Enforcer! Look at his armband! That's the captain!"

"Then why'd he drop so easily? Isn't he supposed to be some kind of bad-ass?"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Tsukune said as best he could with his body still flat on the floor and a foot grinding into his back, "I will have answers to any questions you might have! But can I get up first?"

The students shared a glance, and then the girl who had tripped him in the first place grinned down at him. "What, you can't answer our questions from down there?"

"It is a little hard for my voice to project, really," Tsukune said as sweat started to bead on his forehead.

"Then I guess you'll have to speak up, wontcha?" the boy stepping on Tsukune's back taunted.

"All right, all right, break it up, you losers!"

Tsukune was quite relieved to hear Riza Wildman's voice, and watched best he could as the small crowd parted to let the redhead through.

"Well, well, if it isn't the nice guy from before!" Riza said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Heard you made Captain, kid! Congratulations!"

"Th-Thanks," Tsukune said weakly, "any chance I could get up, now?"

To his frustration, rather than answering him, Riza simply dropped into a crouch next to his head.

"It's fine. What brings you by? Come to challenge the fight club president in single combat?"

"No! Definitely not! My visit has nothing to do with fighting!" Tsukune insisted.

Many of the fight club members immediately lost interest after this, and the small gathering dispersed with only a few students staying to find out what Tsukune's trip was all about.

"Just as well. We still haven't decided on a president since you took Saotome," Riza mumbled, "so what's the deal?"

"I came to speak to the fight club about working together with the new Protection Committee in order to make this school a safer and better place for everyone!" Tsukune said in what he hoped was a confident and inspirational tone. He really wished he could have done so in a less pitiable posture, but at this point he was willing to be thankful they were giving him a chance to speak.

Riza frowned at this. "Isn't that a lot different from the last thing you wanted us to do? You know, crush the Protection Committee utterly so it would be easy to disband them?"

"Yes, it is, but the situation is also a lot different from before," Tsukune explained, "as Captain, I intend to enforce the rules and keep the students of Youkai Academy at peace! For that I need the fight club's help... Or at least I need you to stop actively seeking to wipe out the Protection Committee, now that I lead it."

Riza cocked her head to one side. "Yuh huh... And what if we don't?"

"I didn't come here to make threats," Tsukune insisted, "as leader of the Protection Committee, I intend to enforce the rules fairly and universally, so if you insist on bullying other students and sowing chaos then we'll eventually have a confrontation, but I'm not going to try to hit you with some special penalty or make a special move against you. I'd like for us to come to an understanding that resolves any discipline problems and conflicts WITHOUT violence."

Riza rubbed her chin briefly before she shrugged. "Well, let's see about that." The redhead straightened up, and then cupped her hands around her mouth. "Yo, chumps! Any of you feel like resolving our issues with the Protection Committee without violence?"

Tsukune found the laughter that answered Riza to be quite discouraging.

"Well, this is how it is," Riza said, shrugging. "Sorry buddy. I actually thought it was kinda cool how you came down here all by yourself and tried to talk things out even though you were sure to get beat up for it, but this is a student club after all. I can't just order them to stand down like a bunch of dogs."

Tsukune considered pointing out that Riza DID seem to command the fight club like they were a pack of dogs, but there was a part of her apology that concerned him more. "Don't you mean 'even though you were PROBABLY going to get beat up'?"

Almost on cue, Tsukune felt an agonizing pain as some kind of spike punctured his back, and then that part of his body started to go numb.

"No. No, she didn't," the boy chuckled as he grabbed the back of Tsukune's shirt and pulled him up.

Of course, in that short amount of time the venom from his recent sting had already brought him halfway to unconsciousness, and thus the last thing that the increasingly light-headed boy saw was the floor of the gym rapidly approaching his face.

* * *

"No way. Not doing it," Kouma said irritably as he exited the school building with Ranma right behind him.

"Hey, come on, man! It's not like I'm asking you to do anything hard," Ranmna insisted, following the hellhound on the trail between the classroom building and the dorms.

"It's not hard, it's humiliating!"

Ranma scoffed. "What? Tracking down the gigantic spider by scent? What's so humiliating about that?"

Kouma growled as he turned around to face his superior. "Get this through your head, Saotome! I'm not your pet dog! I do not fetch! I do not sit! I don't roll over or beg or sniff out foxes or ANY of that crap!"

"Yeesh, none of those? Where'd you go to obedience school?" Ranma asked sarcastically.

"Mephiston Junior Academy, on the third level of the underworld," Kouma answered seriously, "it was nice enough, you know, considering it was in Hell and all, but it **was** a state school."

Ranma frowned. "Well, what if I ORDER you to do it?"

"Then we get to find out what kind of TERRIBLE punishment our captain has in mind for people that refuse your stupid orders," Kouma said rather smugly. "You never know, Aono might be in a really bad mood and have to get serious! Just think, he might actually raise his voice at me!"

Ranma clicked his tongue in annoyance as Kouma smiled smugly.

"Actually, come to think of it, where is our fearless leader, anyway?" Kouma asked. "Isn't he back from talking to the fight club yet?"

"Yeah, I think he's finished with 'em," Ranma said blithely as he pointed up in the air behind Kouma.

Kouma turned around to look, and then had to hold in laughter as he saw Tsukune tied securely to the top of the school's flag pole, stripped down to his underwear and seemingly unconscious. The only other piece of "clothing he wore was his Protection Committee armband, which had been stretched over his eyes like a blindfold.

"Looks like diplomacy didn't work so well. Maybe we should've stopped him," Ranma said regretfully as he jogged over to the flag pole to free his roommate.

"We TRIED to stop him. Not our fault he's gone all self-righteous on us lately," Kouma said, snorting. "'No killing, guys!' 'Let's cut our budget so we don't get paid!' 'Don't start any fights with the most powerful monster gang on campus!' I know Aono's playing the good human, but he doesn't have to be such a boy scout."

"Aw, lay off 'im. He's doing a pretty good job so far, considering how nutty this place is," Ranma said as he reached the base of the flag pole.

"And considering how nutty his help is," Kouma added as he glanced around.

There were several students gathered sparsely around the flag pole, most of them snickering and pointing at the hapless boy or taking cell phone pictures, and they all stepped back as Ranma leapt onto the pole, clambering up to the top in a few moments.

"Out cold," Ranma said as he wrapped his legs around the pole and started to untie the ropes, "he doesn't look that beat up, though." Tsukune's nose had suffered a hit, but it didn't look like a knockout blow, and Ranma couldn't see any other obvious injury.

That changed once he got the ropes off and grabbed the younger human around the waist. "Ah, I see. Looks somebody stung him in the back."

Kouma clicked his tongue as Ranma slid down. "Well, they could've done much worse, but still, poison was unnecessary. That's why we all told him to bring a few guards along!"

Ranma dropped the rest of the way onto the ground, and then shifted Tsukune so his friend was draped over one shoulder. "Well, let's wait and see what he wants to do when he wakes up. C'mon, we'll take him to the nurse's office."

Kouma raised an eyebrow. "Don't you want to take him to your room to get him dressed first?"

"He's been POISONED. Isn't it more important to get him some help?" Ranma insisted.

"I'm not saying it isn't, but..." the hellhound hesitated, glancing around at the random students watching and whispering amongst themselves, "isn't it just a little embarrassing being carried around the halls by another dude while wearing nothing but your tightie whities? Might start a bad rumor."

"... Huh. I hadn't really thought of it like that," Ranma admitted, frowning. Even so, he was positive that Tsukune's health took priority over his reputation.

"Got an idea," Ranma said suddenly, glancing around at the crowd, "anyone got a water bottle? Or some kind of water-summoning power? We need water, here! COLD water!"

Kouma blinked. "Oh, to suppress the sting while you get him decent? I guess that could-"

"Here," Mizore interrupted the hellhound as she rounded the corner, a plastic bottle of water in her hand.

Ranma seemed quite surprised as the snow fairy covered the distance between them in an instant, and then presented the water bottle mutely.

"Oh! Thanks, Mizore," Ranma said as he took the proffered item, "I actually didn't notice you there..."

Mizore kept her blank expression, but raised a thumbs-up. "Getting better."

Ranma didn't waste any time congratulating her on her skill at stealth, and quickly dumped the water over his head, immediately shrinking his frame beneath Tsukune's (not overwhelming) bulk and changing his hair a bright red.

"All right, that should do it!" Ranma said before shifting Tsukune around to a fireman's carry and then dashing off to the school building. "I'll see you guys later, after he regains consciousness!"

"Oh, yeah, like THAT won't cause rumors," Kouma said as Ranma quickly dashed out of earshot. "That idiot. He could have asked for someone's coat or something."

Mizore shrugged. "Why didn't you give up yours?"

Kouma winced. "I... don't like other people wearing my clothes, okay? They get their smell on them and then I smell them on me wherever I go..."

Mizore snorted at the rather petty excuse. "So you won't help your captain keep his dignity... if it causes you discomfort later? Huh."

Kouma groaned as he started to walk off toward the school building himself. "Lay off me, all right? It's not like I volunteered for this job, you know. I don't owe Saotome or Aono anything!"

He stalked off in silence, leaving the snow woman behind.

Then he halted, and a pair of black, pointed ears popped up through his hair.

"Wait a minute... isn't she supposed to be running that complaint desk in the lobby?" the hellhound asked, whirling around on the spot.

But by that time, the gloomy (and apparently hypocritical) snow fairy was gone.

* * *

Tsukune awoke with a gasp.

His eyes immediately darted back and forth, trying to take his surroundings as quickly as possible.

'Miss Madaraki's office? Thank God. I'm safe,' he thought as his body started to relax.

At least, it relaxed as much as it could. He felt strangely numb, his nose was sore, and he was having slight difficulty breathing, as if his lungs weren't quite able to take in as much air as they were trying to take in.

This would have alarmed him normally, but the knowledge that he was already in the nurse's office reassured him. Fran was a brilliant doctor - or near-doctor, or whatever - and he was sure she would take good care of him, no matter what his injury was.

That subject caused him to frown. What was his injury? The last thing he remembered was speaking to Riza, but he was hazy about the topic... And also, he got a sense of hopelessness and despair when he thought about it.

Probably not a good result, then.

His musings were interrupted when the curtain around his bed slid to the side, revealing Fran Madaraki.

"Ah, Mister Aono. You're conscious again," Fran said pleasantly. She had six arms for some reason, rather than her usual two, but by now Tsukune was far beyond being bothered by something like that.

"Yes, thank you," Tsukune said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Any idea what happened to me?"

"It is my understanding that negotiations with the fight club failed," Fran explained bluntly, and with a smile, "so in that respect you should consider yourself incredibly lucky to have suffered only a bloody nose and a mild dose of nerve toxin."

"Lucky... Yes..." the human boy mumbled weakly. 'Well, if they had actually thought I was a threat then they might have fought me for real, so I guess she's right,' he thought as he started to throw off the bed sheet.

He rapidly pulled the bed sheet down again. "Uh... Miss Madaraki, can I have my clothes?"

Fran blinked as she cocked her head to one side. "I'm afraid that's impossible. I don't have them."

"What? What happened?"

"You'd have to ask the fight club," Fran asked as she finally walked over to the bed and shined a light into Tsukune's eyes.

"They dropped me off here in my underwear?" Tsukune groused, annoyed. He was well aware that he had been effectively (and by choice) at their mercy, but he was still more than a little frustrated by this turn of events.

"No. I don't know where they dropped you, but Mister Saotome found you and brought you here," Fran explained as she moved on to check his pulse, "he stepped out to bring more injured here."

Tsukune's eyes widened. "More injured? Was there an accident?"

"No," Fran answered promptly, "none of the wounds were accidents."

Tsukune was silent for several seconds as Fran rolled him over to check on the point where he had been stung. "I don't follow."

Before Fran could answer, Tsukune heard the sound of the door opening, although that part of the office was still hidden from view by a curtain.

"Oi, Miss Madaraki! Got another one for ya!" Ranma yelled.

"Look, I'm sorry about the wolf whistles, all right? That was very immature! Please, no tornadoes!" begged a very desperate-sounding voice from next to her.

"God, what is WITH you freaks and the tornadoes? I only did that once!" Ranma complained as she stepped into the portion of the office that Tsukune could see.

"Ranma! Thank you so much!" Tsukune said, grabbing the redhead's attention.

"Hey 'Kune. How're you feeling?" Ranma dropped the student she had been dragging roughly on the floor as Fran Madaraki stepped over to give him a cursory examination.

"I'm a bit numb, and really tired, but I guess I can't complain," the younger human said, "why did you turn into a girl?"

"For your sake," Ranma said simply, confusing Tsukune considerably.

"Really? REALLY? And I'm supposed to just let that go without so much as a snicker?" asked the student Ranma was still holding on to.

_Crack!_ Tsukune winced as Ranma smashed said student's head into the wall and then let the unfamiliar boy drop to the floor, unconscious.

"Miss Saotome, please refrain from adding new injuries before I've finished diagnosing the old one," Fran chided.

"Sorry about that," Ranma mumbled as Fran took the boy off to a new bed.

"Well, you don't look like you're up to any more confrontations, and most of the others have probably finished their patrols and stuff, so why don't you call it a night?" Ranma suggested, jabbing a thumb behind him.

"That's... That's a good idea. Yeah," Tsukune mumbled, wrapping his bed sheet around him as he slowly got out of his cot.

"You should be experiencing shortness of breath and a lack of feeling in your extremeties as the anti-venom neutralizes the remaining toxins," Fran explained as she tended to Ranma's most recent victim, "however, there is negligible danger of further complications. You are free to go."

"Thanks, Miss Madaraki. I'll return this sheet tomorrow," Tsukune promised as he finished wrapping the sheet around him like a makeshift toga.

As Ranma and Tsukune exited the building, the latter shuddered at the sudden chill, the bed sheet failing to insulate him very well against the wind.

"Geez, what a day," the younger human groused, "but thanks again for taking me to the nurse's office."

"No sweat," Ranma said, shrugging off the thanks, "besides, it's always nice to see Fran again. I think I've spent more time with her than some of my actual teachers."

Tsukune sighed. "And I'm sorry about the fight club."

Ranma blinked. "Sorry? For what?"

"You were right. Well, you and Kouma. Talking to the fight club was a mistake, and I was foolish for thinking they could be swayed so easily," Tsukune mumbled bitterly.

Ranma raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to respond. It was certainly unusual for people to admit fault to her, much less tell her she was right, but somehow it felt... wrong in this instance.

"You know, Tsukune, just because it didn't work out this time doesn't mean you did the wrong thing," Ranma said suddenly, placing a hand on the younger human's shoulder, "sometimes good ideas just don't work out. And sometimes doing the right thing means using a plan that probably won't work, or will make things worse."

"You've had to make decisions like that?" Tsukune asked a bit eagerly, always wanting to hear more about Ranma's past.

"I consider myself an expert on doing the right thing even though I KNOW it's going to bite me in the ass," Ranma said solemnly, "like this one time, I destroyed a spring that might have cured my curse so that Akane, my fiancee, wouldn't get affected. And this other time, I fought this French guy in an eating contest for Akane, since her father promised her to the French guy. That was a HUGE pain, even if the food was pretty good."

She frowned. "Come to think of it, most of those decisions involved Akane, one way or the other. But my point is, I don't think you really made a bad call here. You wanted to try talking to the fight club to get them to back down before this whole thing breaks down into a huge kung-fu battle of the century, and there's nothing wrong with that at all."

Then she shrugged. "I mean, no, it's not what I would've done, but last I checked you were the one put in charge because you knew to do the right thing, and I was the one feared throughout the entire damn school just because I threw a tornado once."

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Well, it only takes one time. Tornadoes are kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, see? You pick up on that sort of thing right away," Ranma pointed out, "how was I supposed to know that?"

Ranma shook off her lingering annoyance. "But anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that you don't need to apologize. We listen to you because we trust you, and that's not gonna change because one of your ideas didn't work out. Nobody's perfect."

Tsukune kept walking in silence after Ranma finished, rubbing the back of his head bashfully before he finally thought of something to say. "Okay, well... You're right. I guess I was feeling a little bit down because everything's been a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"Plus there's being poisoned and tied to the flag pole," Ranma interjected, "that's a little depressing."

"Right, right. But things haven't really been going smoothly, and I've been taking it personally," Tsukune admitted, "I've got to spend more time actually trying to fix things and less time complaining about how it isn't going my way."

Then the younger human smirked slightly. "But that aside, when did you learn to give motivational speeches like that?"

"The runt gave me some good tips for the recruitment thing," Ranma admitted with a grin, "but besides that, I room with a master of giving sappy, overdramatic speeches. I've learned a thing or two."

The two chuckled as they reached their dorm building, halting at the bottom while Tsukune adjusted his makeshift toga.

"Sooo... they actually poisoned me, stripped me, and hung me on the flag pole?" Tsukune asked, a definite note of irritation in his voice.

"Plus they took your wallet, assuming it was in your pants," Ranma pointed out.

"They're lucky I'm against killing out of petty revenge," Tsukune grumbled as he entered the building.

"Are you against maiming out of petty revenge?" Ranma asked as she entered behind him.

"If I was, it would be very hard to be friends with you, Ranma."

The redhead smirked. "Then they're not that lucky."

* * *

And so the first day on the job for the New Protection Committee finally came to an end. Each of the members, having successfully completed - or avoided - their duties, went to bed satisfied that they had made the school a better place, or at least managed to get through the day without doing any real work.

The next day Kurumu, probably the one who had most enjoyed carrying out her duties the previous day, stepped into the lobby of their offices happily, ready to start another day of keeping the peace and snuggling her would-be-lover-slash-superior.

"Ah! Kurono. Just who I wanted to see."

Kurumu flinched slightly as she heard Tobaki's voice behind her, and the succubus glanced cautiously over her shoulder. "Why? What's wrong?"

Tobaki had her glasses on, and was looking over a sheet of paper as she walked right past the larger girl.

"Just a few details I need confirmed and wrapped up from yesterday. Follow me, please," Tobaki said as she stepped into her own office.

Kurumu followed warily, and took a seat in the chair in front of the desk as requested while Tobaki sat opposite her.

"So it seems that you made a collection, yesterday," Tobaki said, finally locking gazes with buxom bluette.

Kurumu blinked. "Yeah. I put it on your desk right after I got back," she explained. "Something wrong? Isn't that what we're supposed to do when we get money?" They hadn't been given instructions on that at all, but it made sense to Kurumu. Money went to the treasurer, right?

"You didn't make a mistake, PERSAY," Tobaki said, adjusting her glasses, "but I need paperwork to process the payment."

"Paperwork?" Kurumu asked with a disgusted expression. "But the chemistry club guy just gave me a wad of bills! There was no paperwork!"

"Ah, so it was a club protection fee," the yochlol mumbled as she noted that on her paper, "all right. Do you have a copy of the receipt?"

Kurumu's blank expression was her only response.

"You didn't give the payer a receipt?" Tobaki deadpanned.

"I didn't know we needed to give receipts," Kurumu mumbled, "how do I even do that, exactly?"

Tobaki sighed and pulled out a folder from under her desk, opening it up to reveal a sheath of small paper slips.

"All right, pay attention," the dark-skinned girl said as she pointed a pen to the slip, "this is a receipt form. Everyone with patrol duties gets them in their deployment folder. When a student relinquishes money, you note how much and then mark the appropriate box: either Scheduled Payment, Fee, or Extortion. The final box, Loot, is for anything found on a dead body. Obviously, you don't need to give the payee a copy in that case, but in all cases where the payee actually lives through the transaction you must issue them a copy as well as taking one back here for our records."

Kurumu looked increasingly uncomfortable the longer that the other girl kept talking. "Uh, but Tsukune said no killing, so-"

"So that means that you'll probably be looting fewer bodies, I know, but there may be bodies around from people that you didn't kill yourself," Tobaki pointed out, "anyway, the lines on the bottom are for notes, to write down which club paid up, what kind of fee it was, or the names of particularly wealthy victims so that other Committee members can be informed. You should also use them, as in this case, to divide up portions of the payment."

"Uh, I don't think-" Kurumu started to say, but Tobaki kept on talking right over her.

"The chemistry club gives us 10,000 yen monthly, since they have a good budget. So you mark the Payment Box and note that part down. There's probably a fee in here from something else. Any idea?"

Kurumu was feeling even more distressed, but now it was at least as much from confusion as it was from the idea of looting dead bodies and filing the contents. "Well, I did save him from-"

"Rescue fee. Excellent," Tobaki mumbled, cutting the other girl off again, "that's 2,000 yen, so mark that down... It's a good thing you ran into someone who knew what he was doing, if you really didn't know anything about this."

"Tsukune didn't-" Kurumu started again, only for her words to be brushed aside once more.

"And finally we have an additional 500 yen, which I can only assume is because you're an F-cup," Tobaki said, writing down the appropriate note.

_Bam!_ Kurumu promptly jumped to her feet, slamming her hands onto the table. "Hey! I'm a G!" she shouted, completing her first sentence in some time.

Tobaki blinked, surprised. "Very well, I apologize. Does that command a higher payment?"

Kurumu threw her hands up in exasperation. "You can't be serious! I have to go through all this because someone hands me some money? Did the old guys have to put up with this?"

"They did, although they didn't like the idea," Tobaki explained, adjusting her glasses, "but as treasurer, it is my duty to ensure that all Committee members comply with revenue verification rules. That, at least, hasn't changed with the shift in leadership."

"But the Enforcers used to be nothing but a thinly disguised protection racket!" Kurumu protested.

"That's correct. So what?" Tobaki asked, clasping her hands together on her desk. "Even a protection racket needs proper books to sort out who gets what. Did you think Kuyo dispensed our earnings with a roulette wheel?"

Kurumu groaned as she held her head. "If you really need to take up this much of my time just so we can accept someone's money, I'd rather not collect it in the first place."

Tobaki rolled her eyes. "Please stop being so overdramatic. This much paperwork is no big deal. It's not like I'm asking you to pay taxes."

"Yeah, well some of us have better things to do than fill out useless forms," the succubus said defiantly, crossing her arms under her breasts, "I'm not wasting my time on pointless paperwork."

Tobaki didn't respond immediately, lowering her head to stare down at her desk.

"... Useless? Pointless? Is that what you think?" the yochlol whispered.

Kurumu's hackles rose as she felt a sense of imminent danger. "Er... Well..."

Tobaki suddenly looked up, and Kurumu flinched as she saw that one of the treasurer's eyes had turned blood red, and seemed to be getting bigger as it glared hatefully at the succubus. "Let us discuss the merits of proper documentation in greater detail, shall we?" Tobaki asked, her voice suddenly deep and gravelly.

* * *

"So then the prince kid grabs Akane and tosses her into this rail cart, and I had to chase him down," Ranma said as he and Tsukune entered the lobby, with the latter listening attentively to the former, "I still don't know where he thought he was getting away to; that track only went down to the spring, which is where I wanted to go anyway."

"And then you beat Prince Toma and rescued your fiancee?" Tsukune asked eagerly.

"Really, he was already beaten by then. But because he tried to run, I-"

"EEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Ranma and Tsukune stopped dead at the horrified scream, and they both turned toward the origin.

"That... Was that Kurumu?" Tsukune asked, his eyes widening.

"It came from Tobaki's office!" Ranma said as his face paled.

Both of them bolted for the door, though Tsukune (rather conspicuously) arrived first, throwing it open and almost jumping into the room.

"Kurumu! Are you okay?" Tsukune asked.

"Aim for the eye! It's the only part of her that feels pain!" Ranma shouted from behind him.

Tobaki stared back at them, one eyebrow raised. She was in her elven form, had her hands clasped together on her desk, and was quite obviously not in the midst of violence. "Yes? Can I help you, Captain?"

Tsukune's attention quickly shifted to Kurumu. The blue-haired girl was huddled in the chair facing Tobaki's desk, hugging her knees to her chest with a look of shock and horror on her face, as well as a fair amount of viscous yellow goo.

"Kurumu! Is she okay?" Tsukune demanded.

"Of course," Tobaki said, as if it was a silly question. "Miss Kurono and I were simply discussing the importance of proper recordkeeping procedure. Isn't that right, Miss Kurono?"

Kurumu nodded her head rapidly, spattering some of the goop onto the carpet flooring.

"I think we understand each other," Tobaki said, smiling pleasantly. "Thank you for your time, Miss Kurono. You may leave now."

Tsukune yelped as the succubus practically pounced on him from the chair, clamping onto his side without a single word.

"Oh-kay... Tobaki, listen, I have something to say to the committee, so could you join us in the lobby? The others should be here soon," Tsukune asked as Kurumu shuddered.

"Yes, Captain!" the yochlol chirped as she took off her glasses, stepping out from behind her desk and walking out the door as her fellow committee members gave her a wide berth.

After she had stepped out, Tsukune took out a handkerchief and offered it to Kurumu awkwardly. "You've got some... Uh... on your cheek..."

The succubus took the handkerchief gratefully, her expression starting to return to normal.

"Did she get you bad?" Ranma asked.

"I'm not... sure," Kurumu admitted. "I barely saw them coming, and then..." She stared at Ranma in awe. "It was kind of like being groped; you know, that repelling, scuzzy sort of feeling? Only it was my thoughts, rather than my breasts. Is that what happened to you?"

Ranma grimaced. "No. She mostly stuck to normal groping against me."

"You mean with the-" Kurumu started to ask before Ranma cut her off.

"Actually, can we not talk about this any more? I'd like that," Ranma grumbled, casting a wary glance at Tsukune.

"Well, as long as you're okay, I have to go get something from my office. I'll meet you in the lobby a little later, okay?" Tsukune said as Kurumu reluctantly let go of him.

Kurumu's expression lightened further once Tsukune was out of earshot. "What's the matter? Don't want to talk about getting jumped by a cute little elf in front of your best buddy?" she taunted with a smirk.

Ranma grimaced as he turned toward the exit. "Knock it off, Kurumu. I just don't want to talk about having to fight off Tobaki. I'd think you would totally understand that now."

"Not really," Kurumu disagreed, shrugging, "I'm not that worried about Tsukune thinking I'm weak."

Ranma winced, and Kurumu giggled at the response, her recent trauma already forgotten. Really, she had great respect for Ranma, but the martial artist's heroic bravado was just too much for her to take seriously sometimes.

Pinching the cursed boy's cheek, she smiled brightly as she said, "Aw, don't pout like that! I think it's adorable that you never want to talk about your weaknesses in front of Tsukune because you think he'll respect you less!"

Ranma silently endured her teasing before lightly slapping her hand away. "That's not it, okay? I just want to forget that whole meeting with Tobaki ever happened."

"Oh, really?" Kurumu asked, blinking as she tapped her chin. "Well then, does he know you're afraid of cats?"

"Grk!" Ranma stopped just as he had opened the office door, and quickly closed it again. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

"It's a little obvious," Kurumu deadpanned, "just because Kanade doesn't talk to anyone but you doesn't mean that the rest of us don't know what you two are up to when you're together."

Then Kurumu frowned. "Finding that out was really disappointing, by the way. Come on, the girl obviously wants you! Give her some sugar!"

Ranma flushed badly. "I can't! I'm engaged!"

"You're engaged to THREE women. Is a little fling really out of the question?" the succubus asked, looking genuinely interested in the topic.

"YES. You don't know these women," Ranma grumbled, shuddering, "if anything happens at all, they'll definitely find out. And then..."

After Ranma trailed off, he and Kurumu were suddenly jolted to attention by a shout from outside the office.

"OI! WOULD YOU TWO STOP DISCUSSING SAOTOME'S LACK OF A SEX LIFE AND GET IN HERE? WE'RE ALL WAITING FOR YOU!" Kouma shouted, prompting Ranma to once again swing the door open and glare out at the assembled students.

Kouma glared right back as he crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him stood Moka, Chopper, Yukari, Kana and Keito, their expressions ranging from discreet embarrassment to intense interest.

Ranma was silent for several seconds as they stared at each other, until he finally stepped out into the lobby, mumbling "You have pretty good hearing."

Kouma snorted as he finally dropped his glare. "ALL of my senses are pretty good... Well, except my sense of taste."

"Because of the smoking or because dogs will eat anything?" Kurumu asked curiously.

Before Kouma could get angry and begin the usual cycle of teasing and enraged retorts, Tsukune re-entered the lobby from a different office, immediately seizing the attention of his subordinates. Tobaki followed behind him, looking somewhat confused.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to your second day as members of the Protection Committee," the young human began, trying to look as confident and authoritative as possible. "Today before we get to work, I'd like to share something with you all."

"It's not the take from yesterday's patrol, is it?" Tobaki asked, raising an eyebrow, "I mean, you didn't say anything to-"

Tsukune held up a hand, instantly silencing the dark-skinned elf.

"When I took over as Captain, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to turn the Protection Committee around, even if I was in charge and we got all new... well, MOSTLY new volunteers," Tsukune began, pulling out a manila folder from under his arm, "so when the student council president came to me with several reforms for the committee, I suggested one of my own, something to help the students feel more at ease with us and also help us stay on-track as we make the school a safer place."

"Oh, Goddess below, what tripe," Keito hissed under her breath. She couldn't help but notice, though, that the others were paying strict attention, and that Moka and Kurumu almost looked enraptured.

"To that end," Tsukune continued, "the student council has been taking complaints, compliments, and suggestions straight from the students in regards to the Protection Committee. Even after one day, it seems that plenty of students had something to say about us!"

"That's a wonderful idea, Tsukune!" Moka said, clapping her hands together.

Kouma seemed less sure as he glanced at the folder in the captain's hands. "So, wait... did we get mostly praise, or complaints?"

Tsukune smiled as he opened the folder up. "Well, President Hokuto suggested that the majority were compliments, though I haven't read them yet," Tsukune admitted, "I thought that we should all look over them together so that we can directly and immediately deal with any issues and so that everybody benefits from any mistakes any of you may have made," he reasoned. "And I'm sure there will be some mistakes. I mean, none of us are perfect."

"Well, most of us aren't," Yukari corrected as she wrapped her arm around Moka's and sighed blissfully.

"Anyway, I'm going to begin, now," Tsukune said as he pulled out the first file.

"Man, I didn't know we were going to be judged on this," Kouma muttered as he fidgeted, wishing he could have a cigarette while in the lobby.

"So, I guess this is what you meant when you said that the students are our boss," Kurumu said to Ranma.

He shrugged. "Well, yeah, though I didn't know he was taking it quite so literally."

"All right, here's the first comment," Tsukune said before he cleared his throat, "I'd like to congratulate the New Protection Committee on the great strides you've made in policing and dealing with clubs here on campus. I was approached by the lovely Miss Kurono, and she resolved an altercation with a thug extorting money from me."

Kurumu almost glowed as Tsukune read over the comment, beaming as the others applauded lightly.

Tsukune continued reading, although he looked extremely satisfied already. "She drove off the miscreant, and then handled the club's monthly payment in a professional manner that completely respected my personal dignity."

He blinked. "Monthly payment? What's that about?"

"The various clubs pay dues to the Protection Committee in order to avoid any 'unfortunate accidents' befalling their membership or activities," Tobaki said, snapping her glasses on as she quickly shifted into treasurer mode.

Tsukune gaped briefly, and then went back to reading the comment. "Besides the timely interruption of my being mugged, I also like how Miss Kurono didn't attempt to solicit any additional payment from me or my club, and let me leave without hurting me even after I touched her boobs."

Kurumu started to blush as the applause grew louder. "Aw, it wasn't that big a deal..."

"Good job! Rake in that cash!" Yukari said brightly.

"Nice restraint. I'm impressed you didn't carve up the twerp," Ranma admitted.

"I suppose that there's nothing wrong with extorting money NICELY from the students, as long as we get our due," Keito admitted reluctantly.

"No, no, no! This isn't right!" Tsukune said suddenly, causing all the applause to cease instantly. "We can't accept money from clubs just to do our jobs! That's extortion! It's the same as what that bully was trying to do!"

Most of the Committee members seemed surprised by that idea, although Yukari was quick to offer a counterpoint.

"Actually, it's significantly different from mugging, as we offer a service for which there is definite demand."

"But we're supposed to do it without being paid!" Tsukune protested.

"From an economic standpoint, it's ridiculous to expect us to exert our efforts and risk our own well-being without payment," Tobaki noted before pulling her glasses off and slipping them into her pocket, "but you're the boss! No more club protection payments and service fees, then."

Tsukune frowned at the obvious expressions of disappointment on some of his subordinates' faces, though thankfully not Ranma's. "We're working to make this school a better place, not turn a profit! Our students' safety doesn't come with a price tag!"

Tsukune noticed Kurumu wincing badly at his chastisement, and his expression softened. "Well, I know you did your best, Kurumu, and I am proud of you for saving the guy. You didn't know... I guess."

The succubus smiled weakly, and rubbed the back of her head.

"Let's move on to the next comment," Tsukune said as he pulled the next paper out of the folder. "This one says: I am very happy with the establishment of a proper service desk where we can give complaints and open investigations. It's far better than the old system of hunting down an Enforcer and trying to convince them that whatever crime was done to us inconveniences them, too."

Tsukune sweatdropped before he continued, "When I reached the front of the line at the service desk, there was a pretty girl there to deal with me. She made eye contact the whole time and waited for me to finish explaining my issue before admitting that she hadn't been listening at all and sending me away. It's a huge relief having someone to pretend to listen to my problem, and without any risk of being beaten for my impudence!"

As Tsukune's face darkened, there was more light applause from his subordinates.

"Good job!"

"Let's hear it for eye contact!"

"Where the heck is Shirayuki, anyway?"

"She's hiding behind the door behind Tsukune. Come out and take a bow, Mizore!"

A head of mussy hair poked out of Tsukune's office, and Mizore shyly peeked into the room with a bright blush on her face.

Moka grimaced as Tsukune started rubbing his forehead. "Sorry. I couldn't stay to help her the whole time."

"It's... fine," Tsukune mumbled reluctantly, "you have your own job." Then he glanced behind him at the bashful snow woman. "Mizore, in the future you should try to actually listen to their issues and open up actual cases for us to work on."

"That sounds like so much work..." Mizore grumbled as she leaned against the door frame.

"Moving on," Tsukune said with considerably less enthusiasm now, "this one looks like a complaint: I object to the appointment of Miss Akashiya to the student council."

There were several raised eyebrows at that, and Moka winced as Tsukune continued.

"Her presence is an obvious and cheap attempt to influence the council with sex appeal, and her presence is an unnecessary distraction for our male members, who spend otherwise productive time staring at her or trying to peek at her panties."

Moka promptly gasped as her face flushed. "I THOUGHT it was weird that they kept losing their erasers under the table!"

As Tsukune stared glumly at the paper, Chopper tapped Ranma on the shoulder. "Hey, should we clap this time?"

"I don't think so," Ranma whispered back, "I mean, it is a complaint, right?"

"Maybe we should clap for Tsukune, for thinking to manipulate the student council with Moka's sex appeal?" Yukari suggested.

"That's not why I assigned her there!" Tsukune snapped, crushing the paper in his hand. "I'm not trying to manipulate the student council!"

"Well, if you ever change your mind, it's nice to know that we always have the option," Yukari reasoned.

"I don't... We didn't..." Tsukune dropped the crumpled document onto the floor as he sighed in defeat. "Never mind. Let's look at the next one."

He pulled the next paper out of the folder, although his expression indicated that he already regretted this exercise.

"This one says: I really like the new flag that the Pro-"

_Ssshrp!_ Tsukune immediately tore the paper in half, his cheeks red as he balled it up.

"Kouma, incinerate this, please," Tsukune said through clenched teeth before tossing it toward the hellhound.

Kouma resisted the urge to laugh and ignored the curious expressions from the girls, catching the paper ball in one hand before squeezing it tightly, opening his palm a moment later to reveal nothing but white ash.

"There's a flag? Do we have a flag now?" Kurumu asked as Tsukune picked out the next paper, ignoring her.

"Today a scuffle broke out in the hall between a fight club guy and a senior, and within seconds a member of the Protection Committee was on the scene! It was very impressive the way he corralled everyone away from the danger zone, and when he started a betting pool on the fight, he offered fair odds and even paid out properly!"

Tsukune let his arms drop as he glared at his subordinates. "Who?"

Kouma hesitantly put his hand up. "That was me, actually..."

Just as before, the others started clapping, but they stopped promptly when Tsukune threw the file on the floor. "Stop clapping! This isn't praiseworthy! You do NOT start taking bets when students are fighting!"

Most of them were quite surprised by the reaction, if only because it was so rare to see Tsukune honestly mad, but surprise turned to fear for many of them as Tobaki stepped forward, her glasses perched on her nose and her expression much darker than her captain's.

"Putting aside any possible neglect of your duties... you took or dispensed money from a betting pool while on-duty and DIDN'T REPORT IT?"

Kouma's hair started to stand up as one of Tobaki's eyes turned red, but thankfully Tsukune interrupted the demon's chastisement so he could continue his own.

"No, Tobaki. We're not going to put aside the neglect. Rather, that's the main issue, here," the young human insisted.

Tobaki frowned, but relented, the crimson in her eye draining away as she stepped back. "I see. Whatever you say, Captain."

"Wait, it wasn't like that!" Kouma spoke up, trying to defend himself. "Aono, you said no killing, right?"

"Yes. You couldn't break up a fight without killing someone?" Tsukune asked skeptically, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, I COULD, but as you know, my powers can be pretty destructive," Kouma reasoned, "plus, I figured that your 'no murder' rule meant that you preferred non-violent solutions whenever possible!"

Tsukune started to cool down at the hellhound's logic; both points were true. "That's correct..."

"These guys looked pretty tough, but it didn't seem like they were going to be putting holes in the wall or summoning tornadoes or anything like that. So I figured it would be best to get all the bystanders to a safe distance and let the pair of troublemakers finish their fight rather than risk turning it into a free-for-all. Then I'd just have to subdue the winner, who would already be tuckered out from the battle."

Tsukune nodded slowly.

"So... I was doing that, and then happened to say out loud who I thought was gonna win. And then the girl behind me suddenly shouted that there was no way her boyfriend was going to lose, and some other guy laughed and said that he'd put money on it. And... well, one thing led to another," Kouma finished rather lamely, lowering his head in embarrassment.

Tsukune's frown returned. "I see. Did you arrest the students who were fighting? I don't remember being told that we had taken anyone in yesterday."

Kouma shrugged. "Well, I was GOING to, but the moment the fight was over all the winners swarmed me, demanding their money right away. It's like they were afraid I was gonna run off with it!"

"That's a trust issue. It will probably improve with time," Yukari suggested, much to Tsukune's chagrin.

"Yeah, well, by the time I finished handing out the winnings, the guy who won the fight was gone," Kouma admitted, shrugging apologetically.

"What about the loser?" Moka asked.

"He'd already had both his legs broken and his spleen torn out and eaten in front of him. I figured he'd been punished enough," Kouma mumbled, "I dragged him to the nurse's office and called it a day."

"WHAT? And you just stood there while that happened and... and..." Tsukune massaged his forehead as he tried to reign in his urge to scream. "Okay, Kouma... It seems at least that you understand that what you did was wrong, so I expect that you'll learn from this experience on your own and won't let it happen again. Both not intervening and making bets on the outcome."

Tsukune felt a tug on his shirt sleeve, and his face darkened as he looked behind him. Tobaki was biting her lip pathetically as she stared at him imploringly, looking extremely upset as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

Tsukune sighed before turning back to Kouma. "And although I don't want you doing anything that involves making or losing money on duty, if you do for some reason, make sure you follow the procedures for reporting it."

"Including receipts! Make sure you give out receipts!" Tobaki shouted desperately.

"Yeah, sure. You do that," Tsukune mumbled, suddenly seeming very tired as he closed up the folder. "Well, I'm sure you all need to get to your duties, so go on, and remember what I've told you."

Chopper blinked. "Eh? But it looked like there were more comments. You aren't going to read the rest of 'em?"

"No, I think I'll review the rest on my own," the young human said somewhat bitterly as he turned around and entered his office. A moment later Mizore dashed out, looking embarrassed and annoyed.

"All right, you heard the man! Back to work!" Ranma said as he started to follow Tsukune to his office with Moka behind him. "Let's try and do a little better out there, all right?"

Ranma stopped to pat Mizore on the head (eliciting a dreamy sigh from her and a sharp glare from Kana), and then entered the captain's office alongside Moka.

"Okay, so that could have gone better," Ranma said, scratching the back of his head, "still, at least the student body seems to like us, right? That's progress."

"That's right! We can fix this!" Moka chimed in, looking determined.

Tsukune dropped down in the chair behind his desk, his brow furrowed. "Yeah, I know, but..." He sighed. "What am I doing wrong, here? What am I supposed to do from here on out?"

He looked more frustrated as he picked up the folder full of student commentary and stared hard at it, as if it might yield the answers he was looking for rather than several irrelevant and misguided opinions about his department.

"I have to admit, this situation is still a little surreal to me," Tsukune said glumly, "I've never led anyone before. And suddenly I'm trying to control a bunch of monsters?"

"Not as easy as you thought?" a smug and distinctly unwelcome voice said from the doorway.

Tsukune groaned as Keito stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts and a slight smile on her face. "Keito. I don't suppose you have any useful advice to offer?" the young human asked bitterly, "I mean, you were the closest thing to a vice captain under Kuyo, right?"

The spider woman grinned. "Why, I wouldn't dream of telling you whether your decisions are right or wrong, Captain Aono," Keito drawled, "because your decisions ARE absolute, you know. Kuyo understood the power he wielded, and did so with resolve and-"

_WHAM!_ Ranma suddenly slammed the door shut in her face, eliciting a pained yelp from Keito a moment later.

"You realize that it would be wrong for me to thank you for that," Tsukune said evenly.

"You're welcome anyway," Ranma said, slipping his hands into his pockets.

"Anyway, annoying as she is, does Keito have a point?" Tsukune asked. "I guess it's true that I keep treating everyone like humans... Maybe that's the problem?"

"That's not true!" Moka suddenly shouted, startling the two humans. "Treating everyone with respect and kindness isn't just for humans, and there's nothing wrong with it! You listen to everyone and make the best decision you can based on what you know is right! Just because some people don't care about right and wrong doesn't mean you made any mistakes!"

Tsukune was quite surprised by the amount of heat in Moka's voice as she defended him. "Well, that's good... But whether it's my fault or not, we still have a basic problem that our members don't seem to know what they're doing."

Moka sighed as she scratched her chin. "Yeah... It's like they know what their job is, but don't really understand the idea behind it. So Kouma and Kurumu know they're supposed to stop students from beating each other up, but it doesn't occur to them that it's wrong to make money from the situation."

Tsukune raised an eyebrow.

"Man, why don't they have a class here for basic human morals?" Ranma asked, "I mean, some of the students don't seem to get why it's even bad to kill or force yourself on someone."

Tsukune raised his other eyebrow.

"There is, actually, but it's an elective," Moka admitted regrettably. "Most monsters don't want to take it, either because it has a stigma as a remedial class or because it means sharing a classroom with some of the most violent and capricious students in the school."

Ranma grimaced. "Ah, right. I definitely wouldn't want to take a class with thirty Tobakis."

"Actually, I think you could benefit from the lessons as much as she would," Moka drawled.

"What? Hey!" Ranma glared at the vampiress as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't compare me to her! That's not cool!"

Moka seemed to space out for a moment, blinking vacantly before her cheeks reddened. "What? S-Sorry! I didn't mean that! It was the Rosario talking!"

_'Huh. I'm surprised that worked,'_ mumbled the dark voice from within Moka's head, sounding amused. 'Stop that! Don't ever do that!' Moka snapped in her mind, eliciting an annoyed mental snort in response.

"Of course..." Tsukune suddenly mumbled, standing up and surprising the other two. "That would work!"

"What would?" Moka asked.

"Rather than trying to teach them day by day and rule by rule, instead we should try a proper training program!" Tsukune said, a new note of excitement and confidence in his voice. "We'll teach them right and wrong from the ground up! Formalized lessons! Philosophy study! Training simulations!"

"Martial arts practice!" Ranma added, looking just as excited as he gripped his hands into fists.

Moka sweatdropped. "Ah, Ranma, fighting skills aren't exactly what we're missing in this Committee."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "That might sound convincing coming from someone other than you."

"You want me to snap your neck as an example?" Moka said with a glare, causing Tsukune to recoil in surprise.

Moka immediately flushed and looked down at her chest. "Stop that! I'm serious!"

_'Hee hee hee! That's kind of fun!'_

Ranma gave the vampiress a wary glance, wondering if Kana was playing a ventriloquist prank again and choosing to ignore the outburst. "Anyway, we have that break coming up, right? The one where most of the clubs take trips to the real world? Why don't we do a training camp?"

Tsukune snapped his fingers. "It's perfect! We can take time to lay down the expectations for everyone's jobs and teach them how to do it, and without neglecting the school in the meantime!"

"And I can plan a training schedule for everyone!" Ranma said, sounding just as excited.

"And we can sing songs around a campfire and have pillow fights and braid each others' hair!" Keito said, clasping her hands together as her eyes shined disingenuously.

"... Keito. You're back," Tsukune said gratingly, his good mood evaporating. "Did you have a reason for bothering us besides sarcasm?"

"Not that dumping some cold water on your giddy little fantasy world isn't enough reason to interrupt you," Keito said with undisguised contempt as the others glared at her, "but I thought you might like to know that Professor Richard is here."

Ranma groaned as Tsukune tensed. "Here? Why? What's he doing?" the latter asked.

"Currently he's trying to get Shirayuki to respond to his concerns in a meaningful manner," Keito said, running a hand through her hair, "when that fails, I expect she'll be vaporized. I thought you might like some forewarning, is all."

Keito's reflexes were just good enough for her to spring out of the way before Ranma trampled her as he shot out the door.

Tsukune gaped briefly, and then grudgingly nodded. "That's... very thoughtful of you. Thank you, Keito."

"I live to serve," the spider woman drawled, bowing mockingly before her captain.

"Come on, Moka. I don't think Ranma will need any help stopping Professor Richard, but I'm kind of wondering what he'd come to us for in the first place."

"Right. I'm right behind you, Tsukune," the vampiress said, casting one last stare at Keito before she followed the human boy out.

Keito waited until they were out of the room, and then walked up to an air vent on the wall up near the ceiling. Walking right up the wall as easily as if it were the ground, she knelt down underneath the vent before opening it up and slipping into it, her additional arms sprouting from her torso to aid her as she began her crawl.

"All right, Aono. Let's see how you deal with a real threat. The first test begins," she hissed quietly, her foot curling out and pulling the vent closed behind her.

* * *

"I couldn't help but notice, young lady, that you seem to be entirely occupied with your drawings, there," Richard said amiably as he stood over the New Enforcers' service desk.

"Uh-huh. Got it," Mizore mumbled, doodling on the back of a case form with a weathered pencil and looking totally uninterested in the warlock's presence.

"I actually consider myself something of an artist, as well," Richard continued, puffing up his chest as he inspected his fingernails, "if you wouldn't mind, perhaps I can demonstrate for you? I'd consider it... tutoring in the liberal studies," the warlock finished.

"Absolutely. Sure thing," Mizore mumbled as she flipped the pencil around and did some erasing.

"Oh, wonderful!" Richard said as one of his hands was suddenly engulfed in shadow, the dark energies coalescing into a fizzling triangular blade. "All right, then! First, I'll just need to see what color blood you have!"

_Thwack!_ A desperate snap kick bent Richard's arm at the elbow as the blade descended, it's energies hissing as it slashed far short of the apathetic young woman.

_Thud!_ Mizore blinked as the desk over her legs suddenly split and collapsed inward, taking her doodle with it, which had likewise been split in two. Bewildered, she finally looked up to see what had happened.

She was not displeased to see Richard standing back and looking put out as Ranma stood near the collapsed desk, looking absolutely livid.

"Ranma... You saved me again..." Mizore said as her face flushed and she pressed her hands against her cheeks.

"Yeah, no problem," Ranma grumbled, "although you really need to take this job a little more seriously, Mizore."

"Whatever you say," the snow woman said dreamily.

Richard shook his hand as the black energies dissipated. "Ah, Saotome. Good to see you. How's the new position treating you?" Richard said conversationally.

"It was a lot easier before you showed up," the pigtailed boy groused. "Drop the flames, Prof."

Richard pouted as he pulled his other arm from behind his back, revealing a fireball hovering above his palm. With a twitch of his fingers, the spell was undone.

"And now the rest," Ranma demanded.

This time Richard just raised an eyebrow. "Pardon? I'm all out of arms, you know. Well, I mean, I do have spares since that last incident of you tearing these ones off, but those are in-"

"The trash, since I tossed them the last time I was going through the teachers' offices," Ranma interrupted, "but I meant the flames on your hood."

Richard blinked. "What? My hood is on fire?"

Sure enough, the warlock's clothing was lit aflame and belching smoke, and had been since he first entered and tried to get Mizore's attention.

"You mean you didn't notice?" Mizore asked, scooting back slightly. She found the heat almost unbearable now that she had been pulled out of her daydream.

"All right, what's going on here?" Tsukune demanded as he entered the lobby, with Moka behind him. "Professor Richard, do you need something?"

"Ah, Aono, you're apparently just the man I needed to see," the warlock said, "as a matter of fact, I do have a bit of trouble."

"I can see that," Tsukune deadpanned. "Moka?"

Moka wordlessly detached a fire extinguisher from the wall, and promptly aimed it at the burning teacher.

_FSHOOOOOOOOSH!_ The warlock was blasted full-on in the face by a jet of extinguisher foam, the fires on his robes guttering instantly.

Tsukune nodded in satisfaction as Moka put the extinguisher down. "Thank you, Moka. And please mention to the student council at the next meeting that they should have more frequent extinguisher checks and replacements. They've really been coming in handy lately."

Moka smiled happily in response before Tsukune turned back to Richard, who was busy trying to wipe all the foam off.

"Well Professor, it's my understanding that in the past the Protection Committee used to charge fees for performing their duties or just acts of basic courtesy. You'll be happy to know that as captain I've put an end to that. It's been our pleasure to help you today, and we wish a good day. Goodbye!" Tsukune said pleasantly, cocking his head slightly to one side while he clasped his hands behind his back.

Richard nodded. "Well, that's quite admirable of you, Aono. Out of gratitude, I suppose I'll only kill one of your subordinates."

The warlock promptly aimed a palm at Moka, who gasped in fright as Ranma cocked a fist back.

Richard hesitated, and then shook his head as he let his hand drop. "No, wait. That's not why I came here. I didn't even realize I was still on fire."

There was considerable relief from the officers of the Protection Committee, though Tsukune didn't relish the idea of having to help the psychotic magus further. "So what's the problem, then?"

Richard scratched his chin silently before turning toward Ranma. "Saotome, you know Saffron, right? Little kid, pink hair, bad attitude, wings?"

"Yeah. What about him?" Ranma asked.

Tsukune looked surprised. "You know Saffron, Ranma? I didn't know that."

"Oh, yeah. We go way back. Back to the exploding mountain that landed me here," Ranma deadpanned, "what about the little jerk?"

Richard hesitated for another long moment, scratching at the bottom of his cowl. "Do you know anything about him spontaneously aging a few decades and increasing fifty-fold in sheer power? Ring any bells?"

As the others looked confused, Ranma facepalmed. "Oh, God damn it..."

"Are you expressing frustration, or is that literally what happened?" Richard asked curiously. "It wouldn't be the first time. God is a tricky bastard when he wants to be."

As Ranma growled through clenched teeth, Tsukune frowned. "Ranma? What's wrong? Did something happen to Saffron?"

"Yes. Something definitely happened to Saffron," the pigtailed boy said, glaring at Richard. "Care to explain what happened to Saffron, Prof?"

The warlock looked offended. "Are you implying that I took him hostage on a whim and then experimented on him until I undid the crucial magical bonds that kept his power restrained and prevented him from enacting hot, burning revenge against all who've done him harm?"

Ranma blinked. "Well, I-"

"And then, after a series of running battles in which I proved offensively superior but unable to completely overcome his accursed regeneration and aura resistance, finally managed to get away when he happened to be distracted by some other insolent fool that had attacked him in the past, and then retreated?"

"Did he-" Tsukune began, only to be cut off.

"And THEN, after making this pointless mistake and retreating while others suffered from my hubris, that I came crawling to YOU, an assortment of worthless lesser beings, to clean up my mess and protect me from retribution? Is that what you're trying to say?" Richard said, his voice booming as if projected from a heavy speaker system as his eyes flared white with unholy power.

Ranma and Tsukune glanced at each other, looked back at Richard, and then nodded their heads.

"Yup, that's it."

"That's what were accusing you of."

Richard's eyes dimmed, and he scratched his cheek. "Really? How did you figure all that out so quickly?"

"Not to interrupt Professor Richard's latest comedy sketch," Moka said, raising a hand, "but doesn't everything he just said imply that there's some kind of powerful monster on the loose? Shouldn't we go find him?"

"Saffron's not just some powerful monster," Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "he's the kind that wipes out towns and stuff. We won't have to wait long until he gives away his position."

A creaking noise from Yukari's office attracted his attention as the door opened, and the young witch poked her head out.

"Just thought you guys should know, the entire south wing is on fire," Yukari said.

"See? What'd I-" Ranma stopped suddenly as he paled. "Wait! The cafeteria is in that wing!"

"Yeah, I'll talk to Tobaki about getting some take out for lunch. Later," Yukari said, closing the door.

"See? This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about," Tsukune said, shaking his head, "shouldn't she be more worried?"

"Shouldn't you be, as well?" Moka asked, somewhat perplexed by how calmly Tsukune was taking the present emergency.

"Oh, I am. I'm also terrified," Tsukune admitted, droplets of sweat creeping down his forehead, "but I suppose we have to go take care of this, don't we?"

"Let me know how it turns out," Richard said as he opened a window and started to climb out, "and if you happen to speak to the boy before he incinerates you, please inform him that this incident WILL be reflected in the addendum notes on his report card for this semester. Farewell!"

* * *

"So, what was your name, again? I have to admit, that with the rush of power, the adrenaline, the sheer GLEE of seeing your enemies slowly turning ash around you... it's gone to my head a bit. I've completely forgotten."

Saffron spoke converstaionally as he scratched his head with his left hand.

His right hand was gripped around the throat of a schoolgirl, who thrashed helplessly as she was held aloft by the blazing talons that had replaced his fingers. Great golden wings spread out behind him, although they didn't move in order to keep the Phoenix king aloft, merely spreading wide over the massive updraft of hot air from Saffron's own aura.

"K... Ki... Kimiko," she finally managed to gasp out, her face already covered with streaks of burnt flesh.

"Ah! Kimiko, yes! That IS the name of the mermaid wench that DRAINED me of every shred of life in the wading pool!" Saffron said, looking happy about the circumstances. "That's good! All of you fish-tailed whores look alike to me, after all, and it would be SO embarrassing to murder the wrong one. Or was it ones? I was quite delirious at the time, so I suppose some of your friends might have joined in near the end!"

"You... g... got... better," the girl gasped out desperately.

"Oh, you're quite right," Saffron said with a smile, "but you know, I'm not that familiar with other species. Do your kind get better after being killed?"

Saffron's claws tightened, preventing the hapless girl from answering.

"Well, let's learn about it! This is a school, after all!" the Phoenix king said brightly as a fireball appeared in his free hand.

_FWOOOM!_

Kouma gave a disgusted grunt as he and Chopper peeked around a hallway corner, behind a blazing pile of janitorial equipment.

"Man, this is just like my junior high graduation ceremony all over again," Kouma mumbled.

"With all the fire, or all the murder?" Chopper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The fire. Though there were plenty of people burned to death during the afterparty."

The two brawlers watched as bits of burning flesh and charred bone rained down onto the sparse pile of burnt bodies that decorated the burning auditorium. Fire was scattered everywhere, having caught in a few specific places rather than being a single giant conflagration. There was also a fair bit of smoke, but the sheer size of the auidtorium combined with the fact that all the windows had been blown out had kept it from building up too quickly thus far.

"So... Should we being doing something?" Chopper asked. "I feel like this is one of those situations that the captain would let us go ahead and kill the bad guy. And one of those situations that he'd get mad at us for doin' nothing."

"Yeah, I'm on board with that," Kouma grumbled, "but how, exactly? I'm all for a good scrap, and it's not like the fire will really hurt me, but this guy's a tad more invincible than I like my opponents. I'd like to have a plan first."

"Eh, he don't look so tough," Chopper said, gripping his hands together as he grinned.

"I thought trolls were bad with fire," Kouma said, turning toward the larger monster.

"Not as bad as other monsters are with having their ribs caved in," the troll replied.

_KABOOM!_ Both of the New Enforcers flinched back as the barricade in front of them exploded, showering them with burning wood and smoke.

"Oh, pardon me," Saffron said, the smoke parting before him in a rush as the Phoenix king strode toward the pair, "I couldn't help but overhear how you were planning to stop me, and I find that topic just FASCINATING."

Chopper stood up, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "Well, we can't just stand by and do nothin' right?" He tapped the cloth armband that was wrapped around his wrist. "I gotta job to do, here."

Kouma remained silent as he took up a boxing stance, wondering at their chances in this encounter and cursing his luck that he'd end up fighting some kind of immortal fire creature on his second day on patrol.

"Very well, peons, go ahead and-" Saffron snapped his head to the side suddenly. "Just a moment."

The distraction apparently came from some creature with long, curved talons and hard gray skin stumbling through the flames behind Saffron, looking confused.

"Hello? Anybody here? What's all the-WOAH! What's with the body count?" it exclaimed, stopping before the pile of smouldering corpses.

Saffron was silent for a moment, then suddenly snapped, "Takeda Minome, class 2-B. Killed me when I wouldn't surrender my lunch money."

The monster whirled toward the voice, its small black eyes popping. "Eh? Oh, hey, it's Pinky! Dude, when did you get so-"

_FWEEN!_ A laser-like beam of white-hot flame speared straight through the newcomer, who staggered forward for a moment as smoke poured out of the hole in its back.

_Thwud!_ Saffron turned back to the two Protection Committee members, looking quite pleased. "Sorry about that. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Just in case it makes any difference, I just want to point out that we've never hurt you before," Kouma said, his body still locked in a classic boxer's stance.

"It doesn't make that much difference," Saffron admitted, spreading his talons wide as his wings billowed out behind him.

Chopper was about to launch an ill-fated charge when a sudden cry of surprise came from the other side of the auditorium, once again seizing Saffron's attention lest one of his many tormentors escape.

He was pleasantly surprised to see Ranma Saotome pushing aside a burning support beam and less pleasantly surprised to see Tsukune Aono cautiously approaching as best he could among the scattered flames, a rag held over his mouth and an unfamiliar girl behind him.

"Saffron, what are you doing? This is a massacre!" Tsukune cried before he started coughing, finding the smoke too thick to talk easily.

"I think you just answered your own question," the Phoenix king said with a shrug, "in any case, this environment seems to be dangerous for you, Aono."

"Is the smoke that bad?" Kouma asked, his own breathing not hindered by the soot and ash.

"Actually, I was referring to his proximity to Saotome," Saffron admitted as he aimed a palm at the pigtailed boy. "I know it makes little difference at this point, but I blame you for this, Saotome. This nightmare existence here at Youkai Academy is because of your petty stubborness."

"Actually, it's mostly because you're a jerk," Ranma said, coughing briefly into his hand. "But either way, isn't trying to kill me what really caused all this? You should know by now that never works."

"If at first you don't succeed..." Saffron began, his golden claws blazing brighter and brighter, "use more fire."

"Listen to me!" Tsukune cried. "You have to stop this!"

"No. I will not," Saffron said simply, although the flames around his claws started to weaken, "I am leaving this place, Aono. But first I will raze this facility to the ground, and see it mixed with the ashes of those who have slighted me."

His eyes narrowed. "You have shown me courtesy, and for that I would see you spared. But Saotome must suffer for his insolence."

Ranma was about to say something sarcastic in response, but he stopped as he saw someone new emerge from the auditoriun entrance opposite them, and behind Saffron.

"Don't you see?" Tsukune said, sweat now running freely down his brow as he stepped closer to the Phoenix king, "This sort of revenge only feeds more hatred! If you kill people for abusing you, you're no better than them!"

There was a long silence after he finished, broken only by the occasional cough from one of the people who didn't breathe smoke and the light crunch of burnt wood underfoot.

"Yes. And? Are you done?" Saffron finally asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He means to say that you should strive to be better than them," Moka explained.

"I am better than them," Saffron said with a sneer, "they're dead."

"I meant prove you're better than them in a way that will let them learn from you and improve themselves later on in life!" Tsukune said desperately, although his eyes kept glancing at the strange cloaked figure that was crossing the auditorium.

"They'd have to be alive for that," Saffron said snidely, as if he was explaining a simple matter to a dull child, "I don't think that's really on the table."

"I meant for the ones that are left!" Tsukune shouted in frustration.

Saffron crossed his arms over his chest as his brow furrowed, and then glanced over at Ranma.

The pigtailed boy had been curiously silent the whole time, and was even now standing next to Tsukune with one hand in his pockets as the other waved back and forth in front of his face, warding off the smoke.

"No, I'm definitely leaning towards Saotome suffering for his insolence," Saffron said as he uncrossed his arms and aimed one at Ranma, "I'm sorry we couldn't come to a more favorable agreement, Aono, but he brought this upon himself."

To Saffron's annoyance, Ranma still hadn't taken up a martial arts stance or anything, and even the others looked like they weren't even paying attention to him anymore, even though they were still staring in his direction.

"Well Saotome? Do you have any final quips or self-righteous drivel to get off your chest before I unmake you? Or perhaps a warning for our mutual friend Tsukune so he doesn't have to share your fate?"

Ranma did no such thing, rocking back and forth on his heels as he mumbled, "Wait for it..."

The Phoenix King sneered as white-hot flames started to gather in his palms. "No? Well then, you-"

And then something poked him in the back.

"There. That should do it."

To Saffron, all he could perceive was a series of bright flashing lights before his eyes and a dreadful sinking feeling.

Everyone else watching was treated to the sight of the Phoenix King being enveloped by rings of white light, flaring brilliantly before dimming into spinning rings of runic script and arcane symbols. Several rings whirled into being before spontaneously tightening, vanishing in another flare of light with a high-pitched hiss.

When the light show was over, none could really claim to be surprised to see Saffron kneeling on the ground, stunned, and once again looking ten years old.

Though Ranma was kind of surprised that the phoenix's clothes had shrunk appropriately. 'Man, how come I can't change clothes with my form? Must be nice for magic to actually work in your favor.'

"What? Wh-When? How?" Saffron stuttered, staring at his small, fleshy hands and then slowly turning his head.

Standing beside him was a man. A man wearing long white robes and a hood that obscured his features, along with a crucifix necklace. A familiar man whose eyes seemed to shine ominously and whose unpleasant smile was barely visible through the unnatural shadow cast over his features.

"Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt," the man said affably, bowing his head slightly as he backed away, "please, go right ahead with your conversation."

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Saffron howled, tears bursting from his eyes even as flames - puny though they were compared to the fireballs earlier - engulfed his hands. "I'LL KILL-GYURK!" the royal child yelped as he was suddenly pounced on by Kouma in his hellhound form, seized easily in the massive canin's burning jaws before Kouma started to shake the hapless king back and forth.

"Kouma! Wait! Stop! Stop that!" Tsukune shouted, pointing to the massive black dog. "Drop him! Now!"

Kouma glared at Tsukune with Saffron still siezed painfully between his knife-like teeth, but reluctantly did as instructed, letting Saffron fall into one of the small fires, his body dripping blood and burning saliva.

"Oh, I didn't know we had a fire service," Moka noted as she saw several people in red coats arrive with long hoses and firefighting equipment before they scattered to put out the fires.

"All right, we should evacuate so they can get these blazes under control," Tsukune said, his mind straining under the sheer number of questions he had at the moment even as he pushed them aside to focus on priorities, "Chopper-"

"Got it," the troll said as he swung a locker down on top of Saffron.

_CRACK!_

Tsukune's eyes bulged as his mouth opened and closed like a fish. "W... W... Why did you..."

"I was just finishing him off," Chopper said, tugging on his shirt collar.

"I didn't want you to kill him!" Tsukune protested, flailing his arms.

"Oh. Oops. Sorry 'bout that. My bad, totally thought we were good to kill him," the troll mumbled, embarrassed, "so can we leave now?"

Tsukune covered his face with his hands, feeling that if he allowed himself to speak he might just end up screaming, and he nodded his head.

Moka, sensing that their captain was too distraught to lead them properly, gestured toward the door. "All right, let's go! Towards the east exit and onto the field! Kouma, can you check the halls nearby and see if there's any students that are trapped or need help to get out?"

"Okay, sure," the hellhound rumbled, turning around and sauntering through the flames as jets of water started arcing into the auditorium.

Tsukune managed to bring his frustration under control again and turn to his side. "Ranma, can you... Uh..." He started looking around the auditorium, pressing the cloth tight over his mouth. "Hey, where'd Ranma go?"

* * *

"Oi, creepy hooded guy! Wait up!" Ranma shouted as he strolled through the hall, dodging the increasing number of firefighters and the occasional nursing technician barreling the other way.

The hooded figure glanced behind him, and Ranma barely glimpsed his smirk from beneath his hood.

"Well, leave it to you to chase me down. I really thought I had snuck out of there. Did you want something?" the mysterious figure asked.

"Yeah, I do," Ranma muttered as he approached the man, "you're the guy, right? That Hell Priest guy or whatever that sealed Saffron in the first place? And you also sent me that stupid letter telling me to come here."

The man grinned. "I'm just an exorcist that happened to conveniently wander by."

"Yeah, and Prof Richard's just a disgruntled stage magician," Ranma deadpanned, "look, don't give me any half-assed excuses. I appreciate whatever you did to Saffron back there, because taking down his adult form is a HUGE chore, but you didn't exorcise anything. Who are you?"

The hooded man turned away again, clasping his hands behind his back. "Well, since you asked so nicely... Yes. I think it is about time."

"Time for what?" Ranma asked cautiously.

"We've all been through a lot today, haven't we? And the day's hardly begun!" The sketchy figure chuckled darkly. "I'll send for you and Aono tomorrow. You'll get your explanations then."

Ranma frowned as the hooded man walked off, deciding not to follow any further. "Man, what a creep," the pigtailed boy said. Despite feeling quite thankful for his appearance and swift conclusion, the fellow had an extremely dubious aura, one that reminded the martial artist immediately of Happousai.

Not because the hooded man seemed lecherous in any way, but more in the sense of being an ancient power that Ranma wanted to punch almost entirely on instinct.

Ranma turned toward a nearby air vent. "Yo, Mizore! What'd you think of that guy?"

Surprisingly, he was answered by silence, and the pigtailed boy blinked.

"Mizore? Hello? Are you okay?" He walked over to the vent and grabbed the edges, prying the steel cover off. "You didn't overheat or anything from the hot air coming from the auditorium, did you?"

Peering into the air duct, Ranma was quite surprised to see half a dozen eyes staring back at him, set above a pair of huge fangs dripping with venom.

"Oh. It's you," Ranma grumbled, clearly disappointed, "get out of there, Keito. You're blocking the ventilation."

"Hmph. Is that all you have to say?" the spider woman said as her arms creeped out of the duct, grabbing onto the wall before pushing the rest of her body out.

Ranma backed up as Keito emerged fully, though she was still attached to the wall by her hands as her extra four limbs slowly folded themselves back into her abdomen.

"Well, I have a few tips on what gave away your presence, but I don't think I want you to get any better at sneaking," Ranma admitted, crossing his arms over his chest, "Mizore needs the help, and probably won't use her skills to eat us all in our sleep."

Keito made a disgusted face as her features twisted and shrunk back to the human norm. "Please, I would never do such a thing. You'd give me indigestion."

"I'd give you worse than that," Ranma groused, "so what were you doing scuttling around in the air ducts?"

"It's my favored route of transportaion when I want to keep a few eyes on the situation in the school," Keito said nonchalantly as she cracked her neck. "Speaking of which, I saw that sad showing in the auditorium. It seems our little captain can't talk his way out of quite everything, can he?"

"Aw, c'mon, that's not fair. He was trying to appeal to SAFFRON," Ranma said, looking annoyed, "he's the biggest jerk that isn't a teacher."

"He didn't seem that bad before puberty," Keito reasoned. "He was rude, but didn't go looking for conflict. Delicious, too. I'm not sure what organs a 'phoenix' works with, but they have a sweet cajun flavor going down."

Ranma grimaced as he turned and started to head down the halls. "You're disgusting."

"Oh? So killing him is only wrong when I do it?" Keito said with a raised eyebrow as she followed him.

"That's different! I have something against him personally!" Ranma snapped, throwing up his arms. "Besides, I didn't eat him afterward!"

"Really? How wasteful," Keito mumbled. "You do know that he comes back whole, right? If you're going to kill him anyway, you should at least TRY him. It's not like he's any worse off for it."

"No! That's gross!" Ranma snapped.

"What? You don't like poultry?"

"Shut up!"

* * *

"Keep clear of the auditorium and the cafeteria! All classes in the south wing have been canceled! Please use extreme caution when entering and navigating the building!" Tsukune shouted into a bullhorn as Moka and Chopper tried to instruct individuals that had questions about the smoldering building.

He lowered the bullhorn and looked back at the school building, noting that the fires had been extinguished and the smoke pouring from the windows and roof had thinned.

"All right, I think the building should be safer, now," Tsukune said as he walked up to Moka, "did Kouma get back from searching for survivors?"

"I think I see him now," Moka said, pointing to one of the blocked-off entrances.

Sure enough, a giant black dog was nudging the door open as he stepped outside, a single figure clinging to his back tightly.

"Kouma! You found someone?" Tsukune asked as he and the others approached.

"Hey, isn't that the girl who was with you the other day? When we fought Jin?" Moka asked. The girl was tall, slender, and rather flat-chested, with long blonde hair and narrow eyes that made her stand out immediately.

Kouma looked dinstinctly displeased as he stopped in front of his companions. "Yeah, I found her trapped in the girl's bathroom by some debris. Then I tried to leave her there, but she grabbed onto my fur and wouldn't let go."

"I can't believe you were just going to abandon me!" the blonde complained, still clinging to the hellhound.

"I can't believe any monster that uses fire magic would need help getting out of a burning building," Kouma grumbled.

Tsukune didn't really know what they were talking about, much less why Kouma looked so unhappy at saving someone he knew, but decided to do his job first and worry about it later. "Miss, are you hurt at all? We can give you assistance getting to the nurse's office if necessary."

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," the girl said, smiling pleasantly, "I'm fine."

"If you're fine, then get off me," the hellhound growled.

The blonde looked irritated as she dismounted, but then she smiled at Moka.

"Hi there! I don't believe we've ever been introduced! I'm-"

"Nobody cares," Kouma snapped as his body was wreathed in flames and shifted back into human form, "go away, already."

The blonde frowned at him. "You realize, of course, that this will reflect poorly on your department when I'm writing up the survey form on your performance."

"All I realize is that you're still taking up my time when we've got IMPORTANT things to do. Hit the road, fox," Kouma snapped back, now facing Tsukune without even bothering to look at the girl.

Tsukune sweatdropped as he watched the blonde blow a raspberry at Kouma and dash off. He had no idea what that had been about, but he had more important concerns at present than Kouma being excessively rude to certain students.

"Kouma, Chopper, may I speak to you both for a moment?" the young human asked, crossing his arms over his chest as the two monsters approached.

"Yeah?"

"What's up, Boss?"

Tsukune's eyes narrowed as he glanced at each of his subordinates in turn. "Would either of you like to explain your actions back in the auditorium? Why did you attack Saffron after he had been turned into a child?"

"Well, I didn't want to fight him when he was an adult," Kouma reasoned, much to Tsukune's chagrin, "the bastard's nigh indestructible and obviously fireproof. Of course I was gonna wait for a good opening."

"I was actually good to fight him either way," Chopper pointed out, "but Gamaroshi's probably right. He didn't seem nearly as tough as a kid."

"That's NOT the issue," Tsukune said through clenched teeth, "once he was a child again, however that happened, he was no longer a threat! There was no need to attack him!"

"He might've been a threat, you don't know!" Kouma argued. "He's a magic user! You can't take them lightly, even if they're kids!"

"Even a little fire can be really dangerous," Chopper said, adopting an unfamiliar lecturing tone as he pointed to Tsukune, "a few sparks can destroy an entire building if left unattended, and severe burns can take HOURS to heal completely!"

Tsukune grimaced as he massaged his forehead. "Okay, no, you're still missing the point," the human said wearily, "when I said 'no killing,' I didn't just mean that you should only use lethal force if you have a good excuse handy. I want you to avoid killing whenever possible! Stopping Saffron without killing him at that point was completely possible!"

Kouma started to look annoyed at the constant complaints. "Look, what are you getting all uppity for? He's not even dead for good!"

"I don't care if he's..." Tsukune trailed off as that thought penetrated. "Wait... Say again?"

Kouma gave Tsukune an odd look. "He's not even dead for good." Seeing that Tsukune's expression didn't change, he decided to elaborate. "Saffron self-revives after being killed. Didn't you know that?"

"No, I didn't know that!" Tsukune said hotly. "Why didn't you say that before?"

"I thought you knew! I thought everyone knew!" Kouma protested.

"I knew," Chopper mentioned, raising a hand.

"I actually heard of that during the last student council meeting," Moka admitted, looking embarrassed.

"I knew that!" volunteered the blonde girl from before, popping up behind Chopper and waving her arm in the air.

Kouma promptly seized her around the waist, and she yelped as the hellhound hurled her away as far as he could, almost managing to reach the wall of the school building before the blonde skidded to a stop on her heels and then scampered away.

Tsukune once again had to fend off several unimportant questions in order to focus on the crucial ones. "Wait, if he comes back to life, then where is he now?"

Kouma thought about it as he dusted off his hands. "Well... He died right where all his victims' bodies were... so he's probably wherever they are, assuming that whoever's on corpse removal duty takes his fancy egg thing with the rest of the trash."

* * *

Behind the school building, a pile of scorched, inhuman bodies and bits of burnt debris shifted slightly, barely moving enough to disturb the top-most layer of ashes.

"Somebody... help..." moaned a faint voice from underneath the pile, "being crushed... by... irony..."

* * *

Tsukune was silent for several minutes as he paced back and forth, deep in thought.

Chopper, Kouma, and Moka all waited on one side to hear what he had to say, although Kouma's temper was starting to show.

"Why do we have to put up with this, anyway? The little bastard killed a bunch of people himself. Who cares whether he was killed or not?" Kouma grumbled quietly.

"Just because someone does something wrong doesn't automatically condemn them to death!" Moka hissed, glaring at the hellhound. "I hear you almost killed Mizore once; so would it be fine if Ranma had killed you for it on the spot?"

"That was different!" Kouma protested. "It was an accident! And in the end, she was fine!"

"That's the difference between human justice and a monster's justice," Moka explained, crossing her arms under her breasts, "human justice gives you a chance to explain yourself and make amends, like you're doing now. Tsukune just wants to give everyone that chance."

Kouma winced. Having studied a bit about the way law works in the human world, and with the intention of studying much more, that explanation hit way too close to home.

"Well, it's not like he still can't in this case," Chopper reasoned, "he'll just need a shovel to do it."

Finally, Tsukune sighed and stopped pacing before approaching his subordinates again.

"Kouma, Chopper, I thought it over," the human said reluctantly, "and since the both of you knew that he was immortal, and that you weren't doing permanent harm, what you did to Saffron didn't break any rules."

He took a deep breath. "That said, I'm still disappointed in you for attacking someone who was effectively helpless rather than arresting him. The fact that Saffron can come back to life after dying doesn't give anyone license to hurt him whenever they want."

"Really?" Chopper asked, scratching his head, "but people are always killing him. Sometimes just for kicks."

Tsukune stared hard at the wrestler.

"Ohhhhh, that's the PROBLEM. I get it," Chopper said, nodding.

"There have been a lot of these kinds of mistakes since we started, and I'm glad to say that me and Ranma have worked out a way to solve them," Tsukune said, his mood finally lightening a bit, "over the upcoming break, the Protection Committee is going to be holding a training camp. There we can hammer out some of the issues we still have with enforcing the rules, and Ranma wanted to do some combat training as well."

The other two boys promptly lit up at the thought of combat training.

"I haven't finalized the details yet, but when Ranma comes back-"

"Yo," Ranma said, startling Tsukune slightly as he literally seemed to fall down from nowhere.

"Oh! Ranma! Where have you been?" Tsukune asked.

"Just trying to talk to that jerk in the robe," Ranma said, shrugging as Keito landed next to him silently, apparently jumping down from the same place.

"Jerk? But he helped stop Saffron," Moka pointed out.

"Lots of people have helped me stop Saffron," Ranma countered, "almost all of them are still jerks." Then he turned back to Tsukune. "So anyway, we're supposed to see Mister Jerk tomorrow. He said he'd send for us. Just a heads up."

"Okay, that's fine..." Tsukune mumbled. "Ah... Why?"

"Probably so that he can reveal a few important secrets, hint at things to come, and give us some kind of obscure goal to take care of. I've been through this sort of thing before. Basically he's just going to annoy us and give us more problems."

"Ah. Well, I'll look forward to that, then," Tsukune mumbled, not sounding like he was looking forward to it at all.

"Right. Going to class now. Later," Ranma mumbled as he walked off with his hands in his pockets.

"I should get going too," Tsukune agreed, "all right everyone, I'll see you after classes! Good luck on your patrols!"

Kouma frowned as the others split off, each going their separate way.

"So... Nobody wants to go find Saffron? Just gonna leave him wherever the firefighters dumped him... Okay, whatever. I'll leave too, then..."

* * *

Moka looked uncharacteristically angry as she walked into the girl's bathroom, eventually stopping in front of the sink and glaring at her reflection in the mirror.

Specifically, she was glaring at the Rosario around her neck.

"All right, Evil Moka," Moka said sharply, "I want to have a little talk with you."

_'Oh, you CAN'T be serious. You're calling me that too? This is rich,'_ murmured the voice in Moka's head.

"Well, I used to think you weren't a bad person at all, just kind of scary and headstrong," Moka admitted, planting her hands on her hips as she glared at the mirror, "I even gave you the benefit of the doubt when you DECKED ONE OF MY FRIENDS for no reason. But now you're making me say all those terrible things! What's gotten into you?"

The voice was silent for several seconds before it deadpanned, _'Seriously? That's where the line is? Making you hurl insults?'_

Moka flushed. "At least until now everyone treated me like I had nothing to do with you... What's everybody going to think if you keep suddenly controlling my voice?"

_'Oh, would you GROW UP?'_ Evil Moka snapped. _'You're a vampire, woman! An immortal queen of the night! Who cares what those useless pissants think?'_

"I care!" Moka said defiantly. "I don't want Ranma to think I want to hurt him!"

_'Oh, but we DO want to hurt-'_

"You! YOU want to hurt him!" Moka shouted, pointing rather uselessly at the Rosario in the mirror. "Me? I'm over it! Ranma is not a bad person! He's arrogant, childish, and insensitive, but he doesn't deserve this kind of animosity!"

_'Are you stupid? That jerk still talks down to you every chance he gets! And while we're on the topic, I really don't like how chummy you two have gotten! You used to be on board with teaching Ranma a lesson! Where's your pride, girl?'_

"I swallowed it sometime after I woke up WET and BEATEN half to death by someone who never wanted to hurt me in the first place," Moka said coldly, "so tell me: how are you suddenly making me say things I don't mean?"

_'Oh, that? Well, it's been a while since I woke up, and you won't let me out again, so I've had a little time to mess around in here.'_

Moka frowned. "In the Rosario?"

_'No, in your head. Well, MY head, technically.'_

Moka recoiled, her eyes wide. "Y-You're messing around in my head? Stop that!"

_'To answer you in order: yes, and no. Anyway, it took long enough, but I think I found a way to affect you through the Rosario seal. I knew there must have been a way, since I can already talk to you in your mind, so there must have been a way to affect you besides trying to nag you into submission. And, well...'_

Moka gulped as she stared long and hard at the Rosario in the mirror. "What... are you planning to do with me?"

_'Nothing that Tsukune won't forgive eventually. That schmuck couldn't stay mad at you if you murdered his entire family.'_

"Be more specific, please," Moka said, her head drooping as she felt a queasy feeling in her stomach.

_'I would, but then you might prepare for it ahead of time. And then I wouldn't be able to break the pigtailed prick like a pair of cheap chopsticks.'_

"You do realize you're just going to get us beaten to a pulp, right?" Moka said with a sigh. "You couldn't beat Ranma if he was asleep and hogtied."

There was only stillness in her mind after Moka said that, at least for a few seconds. Then, a hot surge of energy pulsed through Moka's body, causing her to jolt forward.

_'What. Did. You. Say?'_ Evil Moka demanded, her mental voice burning with fury.

Moka had to steady herself on the sink, and as sweat started beading on her forehead she glared up at her reflection.

It was different, now. Instead of being an image of Moka with her Rosario, Moka was now looking at her inner self, her silver hair lashing about in an invisible wind and an enraged sneer on her face.

"You didn't hear me?" Moka said as she shakily stood up straight, feeling an almost searing heat come from the Rosario over her chest, "Ranma won't lose to us. To YOU. I know it hurts, but it's true, all right? That annoying, smartass **human** is just better than you are."

_'What the hell are you saying?'_ Evil Moka snapped, her eyes flaring crimson in the mirror.

"I'm saying that I don't want to fight him. And I don't want you fighting him in... **our** body. EVER. And that's at least as much because I don't want to be laid up in the nurse's office as it is because I don't like you hurting my friends for no good reason," Moka snapped back, suddenly grasping the Rosario tightly in her fist, "I'm **also** saying that Ranma is strong enough to fend off any enemy we'd need YOU for, and I trust him to do it, too."

_'You miserable, naive little-'_ Evil Moka sputtered, before Moka suddenly turned away from the mirror entirely.

"I think our conversation is over now," the vampiress said, reaching for a paper towel and using it to wipe off her forehead, "if you keep causing trouble, I'll just have to ask the others if there's something to be done. I'm sure Yukari will have a few ideas."

_'What makes you think you can cast me aside?'_ Evil Moka demanded, _'what right do you have to... hey, is there someone in that stall?'_

Moka froze as a flushing noise came from her right, and an unfamiliar girl walked out of the stall a moment later and made her way to the sink, not paying Moka so much as a glance.

The vampiress stood in place, her face burning as she stopped to think about what she must have sounded like.

"Uh... h-hi," Moka said shakily, suddenly approaching the other student, "uh, you may have, well, heard something odd just now, but-"

"I'm sure there was a completely reasonable explanation for why you were yelling at your reflection in the mirror," the girl said as she washed her hands, "maybe you've got two brains. Or maybe you're bonded with some kind of weird symbiote. It's not that uncommon."

Moka sighed in relief, holding a hand over her heart. "Yes, of course. Thank you so much for understanding."

"No problem. It's not a big deal," the girl said as she wiped off her hands and then slipped a phone out of her pocket before flipping it open, "of course, that won't make the Twitter transcript any less hilarious once it finishes uploading!"

Moka paled considerably, her hair frayed and her eyes hollow. "Uh? Wait, you-"

"Catch ya later, crazy lady. Don't let the voices get you down!," the girl chirped as she walked out the door, waving a hand over her head with her eyes locked on her cell phone screen.

As Moka's face darkened, the voice from her Rosario sighed. _'It's your own fault, you know. Did you forget that we can speak mentally to each other?'_

"SHUT UP! I HATE YOU!" Moka cried, suddenly bursting into tears as she dashed out of the bathroom and down the hall.

_'Uh... where do you think you're running to? I'm attached to you,'_ Evil Moka pointed out.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, WILL YOU?" Moka begged, startling several more students as she sprinted down the hall screaming.

_'Oh, for pity's sake...'_

* * *

End Chapter 13

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"Well, THAT took longer than I'd have liked," Saffron grumbled as he trudged down the hall to his room, opening the door and almost collapsing as he crossed the threshold.

The last dozen or so hours had been torture, and even Saffron's normally nigh-inexhaustable reserves of energy and willpower had been tested.

"To burn my way through all of those bodies... I barely made it out before they buried me with them!" Saffron groused as he shut the door behind him.

It was bad enough having to be on the bottom of a pile of stinking, burning corpses, even if one was immune to fire, but the sheer amount of time he had been trapped was the worst. As it turned out, several of the creatures he had killed were rather resistant to flames. In his adult form, such resistance had been barely noticable. As a child, however, his puny embers took forever to eat through the flesh, and the resistant bodies positively refused to catch aflame like the others.

"If I EVER get that chance again, there will be no fooling around like this time," Saffron growled, dropping onto his bed angrily. "First, the Hell King dies. Then, Saotome dies. Then the buildings."

He stopped to think, "No, wait, Professor Richard should definitely be killed before Saotome. And then-"

The Phoenix king's plans for unlikely revenge were interrupted by a knock on his door, and with an annoyed glare, Saffron got off his bed to see who it was.

He opened the door, and was somewhat surprised to see a completely unfamiliar boy standing in front of his room.

"Yes? Who are you and what do you want?" Saffron demanded.

"You're Saffron, right?" the boy asked.

"Hm? So I don't know you?" Saffron asked, checking the boy's uniform for any band or badge that would indicate he was part of the student council or Protection Committee. "I'm very tired right now, so if this could-"

_Splutch!_ The Phoenix king was rudely and brutally interrupted by a sword-like claw impaling him through the chest.

"Kimiko was my girlfriend, bastard!" the boy growled, "you think you could just kill her off like that and get away with it?"

Saffron tried to gasp out a response, but a sudden twist of the claw finished him off, and he gave up trying to respond as darkness claimed him once more.

* * *

_Crack!_

Saffron winced as light poured in through a hole in his resurrection vessel, forcing him to cover his eyes as his senses returned fully to him.

"Oh, what now?" Saffron mumbled as the rest of the vessel crumbled away all around him, "are you still here? If you want to kill me again, can't you at least wait until..."

Saffron trailed off as he finally got a look at who had opened his vessel, and realized it was not the same person as before. This student was much leaner, and had a well-groomed mustache as he stared down contemptuously at the Phoenix king.

"Who-"

"My name is Iricho Monoya. You killed my brother. Prepare to die," the stranger said with a thick Spanish accent.

Saffron stared silently as the intruder's hand and forearm suddenly extended while also narrowing considerably and tapering off into a thin blade.

The Phoenix king sighed, and then closed his eyes. "All right. I'm prepared," he said, spreading his arms out.

_Shwk!_ "Gyuh!"

* * *

_Crack!_

Saffron's hands balled into fists as his vessel split open once again, and his teeth clenched as he opened his eyes to glower at the newest intruder.

"For the love of the ancients, how many more of you are going to come around?" he demanded as he suddenly stood up, shoving away the shards of ornate eggshell.

The boy who had opened the vessel recoiled, and as a result nearly barreled into the girl standing behind him.

"Whoa! Watch it!"

"Sorry! He surprised me."

"Just hurry up with it! I want my turn!"

Saffron's eyes bugged out as he looked at the people standing in a single file leading out the door and into the hall.

"There's a LINE? There's a LINE of people waiting to kill me?" Saffron said, his face paling.

"Yeah, so hurry up and get it moving!" yelled a boy near the door, "I've got things to do tonight besides mob justice, you know!"

"Wait a minute! Wait one blazing minute!" Saffron snarled, "Students die at this Academy all the time! If everyone was so dedicated to vengeance that they'd hunt down the killer of their friends and families, we wouldn't have enough students to hold classes!"

The boy at the front of the line shrugged. "Well, yeah, that's true... But on the other hand, it's not that common to even know who killed your friends. A lot of people just disappear, never to be heard from again."

"More importantly," piped up the girl behind him, "it's REALLY rare that any of the mass murderers around here get rendered almost helpless. None of us would be here if you were still an adult."

"Well, maybe Monoya. He's kind of hardcore like that," the boy suggested.

"Hey! Can we get a move on? Not all of us are nocturnal, you know!" shouted someone near the back.

"So that's how it is," the boy at the front of the line said as he reared a fist back that crackled with electricity, "I'd say I was sorry about this, but I wouldn't mean it."

Saffron's eye twitched. "I hate my life..."

_Bzack!_


	15. Yes, THAT Witch's Knoll

"Hello everyone! Are you ready for another try at Ranma's species?" asked Shizuka Nekonome, acting exuberant as usual, "well, to be honest these segments are getting tiresome and we have a lot to get to, so let's hurry and get it out of the way!"

Still sounding curiously exuberant, she gestured to the child sitting next to her. "And speaking of short, meaningless annoyances that won't go away, today's contributor is none other than Saffron!"

Saffron's eye twitched as he stared up at the cat-like woman. "Are you really an educator?"

"Are you really a king?" Shizuka asked back brightly, laughing as if she hadn't been insulted, "no, but seriously, no one cares. We're here to talk about Ranma! So what's your guess?"

Pushing aside his obvious irritation, Saffron, scratched his chin in thought. "I haven't given it too much thought, but I suppose my first guess would be a tengu."

"Tengu? Why's that?" Shizuka asked.

"His absurd agility comes to mind. Plus his obvious affinity for sensing and making use of wind currents. As a humanoid avian, I can appreciate how much energy that takes and how much wings help. He simply seems impossibly agile for a human..." then Saffron frowned. "Then again, I've fought Amazon warriors before who were that fast, so maybe he really is just a-"

"Tengu! Interesting! Well, on to the main segment!" Shizuka interrupted, clearly trying to move things along.

Saffron looked startled, and started looking around. "Wait, really? I'm not going to be killed?"

Miss Nekonome shook her head. "No, even negative attention is pretty much wasted on you!"

As Saffron's face darkened, Shizuka waved. "Enjoy the chapter!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 14  
Yes, THAT Witch's Knoll

* * *

"Knock, knock!" Ranma said as Kouma reared back a fist, his fingers sputtering flame.

_BWOOM!_ The heavy wooden doors almost disintegrated before the fiery impact, and Ranma immediately strode through the aftermath of the explosion, ready to leap into action at a moment's notice.

It proved unnecessary. The interior of Youkai Academy's basement contained several monsters, but none of them seemed ready or willing to fight the pair of battle-ready Enforcers that entered through the smoke.

Of those monsters, six of them were students wearing shackles of glowing energy, all of them in varying states of disarray. Half of them appeared to be in the midst of shoveling coal into a massive brick furnace that Ranma was pretty sure existed for the sole purpose of requiring abusive labor (all the dorms were gas heated), and one was on her knees sobbing into the dusty concrete floor.

The seventh monster was Professor Richard, who looked slightly put out by the violent intrusion.

"You know, you two are the reason I need a 'door' inventory in my club's budget," Richard said, planting his fists on his hips.

"All right, pack it up," Ranma said, clapping his hands as Kouma approached the hopeful-looking students to help them out of their bonds, "you guys are free. Lose the magic chains and get out of here."

"Oh, thank the lord serpent!" the girl crying on the floor gasped, "I thought we would die here!"

"So did I," Richard mumbled as his eyes narrowed at Ranma, "what's the problem this time?"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head, "What do you think? We already told you that your capturing students, locking them up, explaining to them that their parents never actually loved them, and working them to death is against school rules!"

Another wave of sobs came from the girl on the floor, "I didn't even know I was an accident until an hour ago! Mommy wanted to roll my egg off a cliff!"

Richard crossed his arms over his chest. "You're being quite unreasonable. How am I to engage in genuine orphan activities if there are such meddlesome restrictions placed upon my treatment of the students?"

"That's the POINT, freak," Ranma snapped before the crying girl shouted again.

"I wasn't an orphan until an hour ago either!"

"It was part of our field trip," Richard explained to an increasingly bemused Ranma, "it was necessary to show how orphans are usually made. During a meteor shower, specifically. While a flood blocked all possibility of escape. Before spearing the surviving parents with spears of the strongest acid while they try to flee." The warlock briefly observed his fingernails, looking pleased. "I try to be thorough."

"Everyone I grew up with is dead!" the girl sobbed.

"ALL RIGHT. We get it. Shut up already," Kouma snapped in annoyance, grabbing the glowing yellow manacles attached to her arms and giving them a sharp twist. A loud keening noise briefly reverberated through the room as the spell failed, and the magical chains leading from the manacles to the wall disintegrated into flickering motes of light.

"So this is it. No more orphan club. We have an official order by the student council that it's being disbanded," Ranma said, brandishing a letterhead at the warlock, "so now you're no longer allowed to kidnap students, kill off their families, and work them to death in the basement!"

Kouma frowned as he stopped in front of the last imprisoned student. "You know, he wasn't actually 'allowed' to do that in the first place. All of those things were still against the rules, whether or not it was a club activity," he pointed out, causing a sweatdrop to rolled down Ranma's head.

"Also, not having a club to thinly justify his crimes probably won't stop him from just kidnapping and killing whoever he wants anyway," said one of the recently rescued students, to which Ranma's eyebrow twitched.

"But serial killing is so much more interesting with a theme!" Richard griped, grabbing the paper and reading it over, "it's no wonder modern education is failing today's youth! When we even start cutting perfectly good extracurricular activities just because the surviving parents are afraid of their children being mutilated and-" the warlock was cut off as Ranma suddenly picked him up by the waist and threw him into the furnace.

The other students except for Kouma gaped at the unexpected act of violence, and watched in morbid fascination as the reddish glow from the mouth of the furnace slowly darkened and turned green.

"I don't even know what everyone is complaining about," came Richard's voice from within the furnace, "as long as you're totally incapable of feeling pain, this is noth-"

_CLANG!_ Ranma slammed the furnace door shut as a vein bulged on the side of his head, and then turned toward Kouma. "Let's hurry this up, already. I doubt that's gonna hold him for long, and I'm sick of his jokes."

"Yeah, yeah," mumbled Kouma as he broke the magical bonds of the final captive student, "there. All done."

"Thank you! You really saved us!" shouted the girl who was on the floor, still sniffling, "if you hadn't come along, we would have... we would have..."

Kouma rolled his eyes as he walked out the door, entirely unmoved by the gratitude. "Grow a saving throw, wimp."

"Don't forget, now that you're not being killed by an instructor after classes, you'll need to join a new club to meet the graduation requirements," Ranma warned as he followed Kouma out.

"I think Gin said that the newspaper club is looking for more members," offered the hellhound.

"Blech. I don't think that's much better than the club they just left," Ranma countered as the two left the room and ascended the stairs to the main hallway.

While Kouma turned into the hallway as he exited, Ranma stopped short at the top of the stairs, noticing that there was a man leaning on the wall opposite, his arms crossed over his chest.

The man was dressed vaguely like a priest, with a long black coat and a collar that had a single white stripe over the throat. What was less priest-like were the sunglasses, earpiece, and the longsword that the man had sheathed at his hip.

Any place other than Youkai Academy, such an individual would have been unbearably suspicious. At Youkai Academy, such a figure attracted just enough attention to let the regular students know to ignore and avoid it, and Ranma quickly made to follow Kouma while avoiding eye contact.

"Mister Saotome."

'Damn,' the pigtailed boy cursed as he stopped in his tracks. "Yeah? What is it now?" Ranma grumbled, turning toward the man.

"The Headmaster wishes to see you, Saotome. And Aono too," the sketchy priest said, standing up straight, "I will take you to him."

"Ugh. I think I'd rather go back and help Professor Richard out of the furnace," Ranma griped, "all right, fine. Let me get Tsukune and we can get this over with."

* * *

"Okay, so let's go over this again," Tsukune said as he clasped his hands together tightly, "I'll go step-by-step, so you can tell exactly where you made mistakes and how to improve your performance. Okay, Chopper?"

Chopper nodded mutely as he stood in the lobby of the Protection Committee, his hand firmly clamped onto the shoulder of a student gasping in pain.

"So, you saw this guy slamming another student against a locker. You intervened. That's good! Very good! You stopped him from harming his victim and explained what he was doing wrong. An excellent job! I'm really proud of how much progress you've made!" Tsukune said, his voice slightly higher pitched than usual.

"Thanks!" Chopper said, beaming and flashing a thumbs-up. "I considered just smashin' his head into the locker, but I thought that you would want him to have some warning first."

"Yes. Good job. Very good insight," Tsukune said seriously, nodding his head, "problem: after confronting a miscreant, you only need to fight them if they resist in some way. Do you understand why this is?"

Chopper raised an eyebrow as he scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "To save time?"

"That's... one advantage, yes," the young human said solemnly, "but there are other reasons, too! If you attack someone who's willing to surrender, then they might try to defend themselves, starting a battle that could have been avoided completely!"

Chopper frowned. "And that's... a bad thing?"

"Combat causes damage to the school and gives Miss Madaraki more work to do," Tsukune explained, immediately going to the explanation that involved simple costs and benefits rather than trying to explain that even delinquents had some right to safety, "it's less disruptive to the students who follow the rules, and it means that the offender can return to classes earlier so that they can be further educated on acting like peaceful, productive humans."

"Ah. Okay, that makes sense," Chopper decided, scratching his massive chin.

Nodding, Tsukune continued. "So in the future, I'd really like you to avoid breaking people's legs whenever possible."

"Th-Thank you," gasped out the young man still being held up by Chopper. His legs lay on the ground behind him, twisted and useless from having been mercilessly crushed before being dragged around the halls and up two flights of stairs.

Chopper looked doubtful. "But what if they try to run away?"

"If they..." Tsukune took a deep breath. "You know what? We can cover this in better detail during the training session. For now, think over what I said and take him to the infirmary."

"Gotcha, Boss," Chopper said, suddenly whipping the hapless prisoner over his shoulder and then walking out the front door as the nameless miscreant whimpered in pain.

"Well, I do believe that's the first person we've successfully taken in alive!" Yukari said brightly as she wrote out a demerit with the student's school ID in front of her. "Progress!"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is," Tsukune deadpanned. Moka, who was the only other person present, gave him an awkward smile from where she sat next to the young witch.

A moment later the door opened up, and Ranma waved as he entered the room. "Yo! Tsukune, time to go. Gotta meet with the head jerk. One of his goons just told me where to go."

"You mean the Headmaster?" Tsukune asked as he approached his roommate.

"Isn't that what I said?"

Tsukune pursed his lips. "Ranma, I understand that you don't like this man, and you're probably right about him, too. Anybody in a position of authority who could stand idly by and watch the chaos around here without doing anything about it obviously isn't the benevolent type. But I still hope you won't insult him to his face when we meet him."

"So I can insult him behind his back all I want, right?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, although it'd be nice if you waited for him to actually do something to deserve it first," the younger human admitted. "Right now all he's really guilty of is neglect and sealing Saffron... and it's hard to fault him for sealing Saffron."

"Okay, okay, you have a point," Ranma mumbled, "hey Moka, you wanna come too?"

The vampiress perked up, pleased to be invited along but also surprised that Ranma would ask. "Oh, okay! Is there a particular reason why?"

"Yeah, so Yukari can work rather than fawning over you," the pigtailed boy said bluntly, pointing to the young witch, "she's gotta go over the student complaints, and she'll make a lot more progress if she's not busy making excuses to feel you up."

As Moka's face darkened, Yukari gave her an apologetic look. "That IS a legitimate concern, actually. Sorry, Moka."

Tsukune very deliberately faced toward the exit so that the others couldn't see the exasperation (or in Moka's case, the relief) in his expression. "Well, we shouldn't keep the headmaster waiting. Let's go!"

* * *

Ranma glanced around curiously as he, Moka, and Tsukune were led to the Headmaster's office, his hands in his pockets. They were walking along a long hallway, its walls decorated with large paintings and guards standing attentively every ten meters or so.

The man leading them had not given them a name, and in fact looked utterly identical to every other one of the Headmaster's guards; fairly tall and thick-built, wearing priests' clothes and a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes.

"This is pretty serious security you have here," Tsukune mumbled, feeling a bit intimidated despite Ranma's presence. He wasn't expecting so many guards for a school official, no matter how important a school official.

"The Headmaster can explain," their guide said briefly, not bothering to look at the young human.

Moka leaned over to Ranma, looking nervous. "Ranma, what do you think of this?"

Ranma took one hand out of his pocket, and his arm lashed out as the trio passed by another of the guards, snatching the sunglasses away from the silent sentinel.

The guard blinked eyes that were a solid white, devoid of any ocular anatomy, and then glanced at Ranma as the pigtailed boy walked past.

Then, without giving the matter any more attention, the guard pulled another pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

"Huh," Ranma mumbled as he looked the sunglasses over, completely ignoring the fact that Moka and Tsukune had gone tense, "dull reflexes, passive attitude, and either they're really sensitive to light or they don't actually have a sense of vision." Then he snorted. "These guys are meat shields. No wonder he needs so many of 'em to lock down the place."

Tsukune winced at Ranma's characteristically blunt assessment within earshot of the people he was assessing. "Ranma, don't be so rude! They have an important job to do."

_'They're probably not truly sentient,'_ opined Evil Moka from within the Rosario, _'just mass-produced dolls, like Madaraki's assistants.'_

'What makes you think that?' Moka asked back.

_'The fact that they look and act identical to each other, and are willing to stand at attention at full awareness like this for so long at a time without causing trouble. Name me one monster species that would take up a job like this.'_

Moka figured there might have been one or two if she really thought about it, but her other personality was probably right. It did look like an awfully dull job, and the men were executing it with perfect discipline, even indulging Ranma's actions and derisive comments without so much as flinching. It made perfect sense to assume they were some sort of magically animated soldiers.

"So what do you think they're here to defend against?" Moka asked aloud.

"Dunno, but there must be all kind of nut jobs who who would want a piece of the Headmaster, right?" Ranma asked, trying on the sunglasses. "Putting aside the ones with an actual grudge like Saffron, there's the students that think the school is a stupid idea and would want to attack the one in charge just out of spite, plus the guys who think that maybe they can become the boss of the entire campus if they defeat the guy in charge."

Ranma frowned as he looked around with the sunglasses, then took them off. "Actually, for all we know, they could be right, too. How do we know you don't become headmaster by beating the old one?"

"Don't get any ideas," Moka warned.

"I wasn't!" Ranma said defensively, "I'm just thinking out loud, here."

"Actually, that's a really good point," Tsukune said, which surprised Moka, "we don't really know where the line is between humans and monsters in Youkai Academy's leadership. They've made the basic setup of the school as human-like as possible, but the fact that the students are monsters usually ruins the intention. What if the headmaster is just a monster operating the school based on what he knows about human schools from TV or some book? The entire leadership of this place could be made up of monsters who barely have any idea what they're doing."

"Are you finished talking about me behind my back yet? We're almost to my office," said the Headmaster from behind the teenagers.

Even Ranma was startled by the sudden appearance, and the trio whirled around to confirm that the creepy old hooded man with glowing eyes was indeed behind them.

"I di-didn't mean any disrespect, Sir!" Tsukune said nervously as the hooded man walked past them.

"I did," Ranma admitted, "but in my defense, you're REALLY sketchy."

The Headmaster ignored them as he reached the double-doors at the end of the hallway, and then he pushed them open.

The man's office was impressive, if not in a distinctly and predictably stereotypical way: skulls adorned his massive oak desk with holes in the top to hold office supplies. Bookshelves lined every wall, crammed from end to end with thick, dusty tomes. Vials of unlabeled liquids in a wide variety of colors were stacked here and there, only occasionally marked with a skull to indicate that consumption might be a bad idea. Catholic symbols were everywhere, the cobweb-laced crosses creating a perfectly ironic and traditional contrast to a variety of more obscure fetishes and symbols.

The Headmaster walked up behind his enormous desk as Ranma, Tsukune, and Moka waited patiently, surrounded by the identical bodyguards.

"So. Congratulations on your recent promotion to captain of the Protection Committee, Mister Aono. I'm sorry I couldn't congratulate you earlier," the man said, his voice deep and curiously disingenuous.

"That's all right, Sir. I'm just glad I have the opportunity to make this school a better place," Tsukune responded.

"Oh, and you have," the strange hooded man said, grinning, "Kuyo was a rather tiresome fellow. Still, it came as quite a surprise to hear he was usurped by a human."

The trio suddenly tensed, staring up at the Headmaster with wide eyes.

"What? Did you think I didn't know?" the Headmaster asked, leaning forward as he grinned. "Did you think anything as important as a human joining the student body would escape my notice?"

"Actually, yes, that was my first impression," Tsukune admitted, "and... my second and third impression as well."

Ranma looked hopeful. "Wait, how many humans are we talking about? Like, two? There were two, right?"

Ranma was ignored completely as Moka made her own thoughts known. "Wait, if you knew Tsukune was a human, why didn't you do anything? He could have been killed!"

"That's not really a concern that's unique to him," the Headmaster pointed out, steepling his fingers, "Youkai Academy is an academic slaughterhouse where only the strong survive; the weak are either killed or learn to evade the others until they can escape. The strong take and do what they want until they graduate or are finally overcome. Or at least, that's how it used to be."

Tsukune raised an eyebrow. "You mean it's not like that now? It sure seems that way."

"It does, doesn't it?" the Headmaster asked, smiling in a way that made Ranma REALLY want to punch him, "and yet here you are, Aono. Captain of the Academy police force. You are, with the exception of some of the scrawnier imps, the weakest creature on this campus, and yet many fear to cross you. You have seized chaos and begun the process of hammering it into order."

Ranma pointed to himself. "What about me?"

"You're a walking tornado generator," the Headmaster said blithely.

"ONE TIME! I only did that ONCE!" Ranma complained, "God, will you people let it go?"

The cloaked man once again ignored Ranma to speak to Tsukune again. "This school has... a problem, you see. Despite it's mission to teach students to act like humans, Youkai Academy is... not very good at it."

"We noticed," the three students deadpanned together.

The Headmaster continued, undeterred. "Our teachers are not themselves adept at acting human. The mix of random monsters does not encourage peaceful co-existence, but contests of strength and racial grudges. And up until now we even had a student police force that spent more time controlling its critics than the school's mass murderers."

He nodded. "In short, things were bleak, and I knew that as it stood the students, while hardened from a life of living in close quarters under constant threat of death, would have a difficult time properly hiding among humans, never mind actually integrating with them after graduation. I decided to try an experiment, of sorts, and set out to give this school a dose of... 'genuine' humanity."

Tsukune staggered back as if he had been struck. "Wait, so... it wasn't an accident that I came here?"

The Headmaster laughed. "Hardly! You were chosen and then brought here quite deliberately, Mister Aono! In order for you to do exactly what you've done here: set an example for the monsters and properly socialize them, while displaying how human wit can overcome the brute force of monsters."

"And you brought me here to watch his back? As a fellow human?" Ranma asked.

"I brought you here because you destroyed a mountain," the Headmaster said, glancing at Ranma, "your rooming together was just because you two arrived at the same time for dorm assignments."

"Hey, that mountain was mostly Saffron's fault!" Ranma complained.

"And I brought him in, too. Now will you quiet down? You're absolutely **ruining** the dramatic exposition," the hooded man said irritably.

"Tsukune, can I punch him?" Ranma asked through clenched teeth.

"Not yet, Ranma. Let him finish first," Tsukune chided before speaking to the Headmaster once more, "so let me get this straight: you brought me here hoping that the influence of a real human would rub off on the students? What if I didn't last that long? I'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for Ranma!"

_'So I don't even warrant a mention anymore, huh?'_ Evil Moka said bitterly.

'You spent more energy trying to kill Ranma than defending Tsukune. Did you think he'd want to thank you?' Moka thought back.

_'You tried to kill Ranma! Wah! Wah! I'm an insipid ninny who lets dumb humans belittle me because violence is bad!'_ Evil Moka mocked, managing to relate a high-pitched crying voice despite the message being telepathic.

'Shut up! Violence IS bad, especially when applied to our friends!'

_'You know, that kind of attitude is the reason you're the least respected member of the Committee,'_ Evil Moka telepathically drawled, _'seriously, sometimes even __**I**__ can't figure out why Tsukune doesn't dump you for the succubus.'_

As Moka was fully engaged in arguing with herself, Tsukune was still patiently hearing out the Headmaster's explanation.

"I don't really have anything to tell you concerning the threats to your life," the cloaked man said with a shrug, "casualties among the student body are a matter of course. And this was an experiment, as I said: if you didn't survive long enough to make an impression, then that's obviously a limitation of the idea. I might try again with some other fellow, or I could forget the plan entirely."

Tsukune paled. "You mean you might have just watched me die and then done the same thing to someone else? What, would you keep feeding humans into the academy until one of them survived?"

"Until another one survived, yes," the Headmaster said shamelessly.

"What?" Tsukune asked.

"What?" the headmaster asked right back.

"You said 'another one'."

"No I didn't."

The room was silent for several seconds, with the only noise being Moka's whispered angry muttering.

The Headmaster coughed into a fist, and then spoke again. "In any case, speculation of how many humans I might have hypothetically killed in the future aside-"

"Wait, I AM the first person you used for your 'experiment,' right?" Tsukune asked angrily.

"You have not only survived, but done quite well for yourself!" the hooded man said without missing a beat or answering the question asked of him. "I never would have imagined that you would replace Kuyo!"

"Hey, seriously, answer the question," Tsukune said, droplets forming on his brow, "how many humans have died here?"

The Headmaster ignored him as he leaned back in the chair, his glowing eyes staring up at the ceiling. "But I didn't call you here just to reveal shadowy back story. I understand that the Protection Committee is to have a training camp during the break, correct?"

Tsukune massaged his forehead, not wanting to let go of the Headmaster's casual disregard for his students' lives, but recognizing that he probably wasn't going to get a confession out of the man. "Yes, that's... that's right. So?"

"You will hold the training camp at a location in the human world that I've selected that would be ideal for this purpose: a small, seldom-traveled region in the human world called Witch's Knoll."

"Dun-dun-DUNNNN!"

Tsukune and Ranma glanced to the side, where one of the Headmaster's guards was doing his best to pretend that he hadn't said anything by coughing into his fist.

"The driver will take you all there on the first day of break," continued the Headmaster.

"Uh huh. And what about the witches?" Tsukune asked.

"What witches?" the Headmaster asked back.

"The witches on the knoll."

"Why would you think there are witches on Witch's Knoll?"

"Are you seriously asking that or are you just trying to tempt Ranma into caving your head in?" Tsukune deadpanned.

The Headmaster shook his head. "You're being paranoid. Witch's Knoll is in human territory. It's even been set to be bulldozed for a construction project soon. It's just called that out of superstition."

"Right. And that superstition has nothing to do with a history of strange phenomenon or disappearances, or maybe actual sightings of witches whom we all know actually DO exist?" Tsukune demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It was probably just swamp gas," the Headmaster said with a shrug.

"What?"

"What?"

As Tsukune fumed and reflected on how accurate Ranma was when it came to judging elderly lunatics, the Headmaster pointed at the pigtailed boy.

"By the way, remember when I said the driver would take you ALL there? That was a slight exaggeration. Saotome will not be with you," the Headmaster said, grinning again.

"How's that again?" Tsukune said, now thoroughly dispirited by this meeting.

"I have a different task for him."

"What a coincidence, I have one for you too!" Ranma said in a voice that sounded happy, but obviously wasn't happy. "Drop dead. I don't have to do what you say."

"I have authority over the Protection Committee, and that includes you," the Headmaster reasoned.

"Yeah, well unless that authority includes mind control..." Ranma trailed off, looking worried, "wait, it doesn't include mind control, does it?"

"No. Enchantment magic is my barred school," the Headmaster said regretfully.

Ranma sighed in relief before continuing. "Well then SCREW YOU, creep! I'm not doing anything you say!"

The Headmaster continued on as if Ranma hadn't already refused. "The mission is to accompany Professor Jadeite during his club's trip to the Juuban district of Tokyo, which I understand is for the purposes of 'finding and studying the corpses of prominent devil hunters'. It probably also involves making them."

"You're really not helping sell this thing," Ranma said blithely.

"As you might recall, Professor Jadeite recently lost his entire Exploration Club. Ordinarily they would have been accompanying him."

"Yes, we 'recall' that," Tsukune interjected, "some of us used to make up his club, after all."

"Still not seeing a reason for me to go with him," Ranma said, lacing his hands behind his head.

"In lieu of taking a small group of students with him or an invincible super weapon, it seems Jadeite has instead opted to take Professor Richard instead."

Ranma's jaw hung open for a few seconds before his arms dropped to his sides. "Crap."

"Seeing how Professor Richard also has no club trip - on account of your recent dismantling of his orphan club - he was available to light fires if a peer was willing to provide targets," the Headmaster explained, leaning forward to better stare down at the two boys, "as this is your responsibility, you will manage the consequences, yes?"

Ranma scratched his head. "Wait, we took down the orphan club, like, MINUTES ago. How did all this get arranged so fast?"

"It's a mystery," the Headmaster said, his grin seeming to stretch slightly wider.

"So... we did something right and prevented Professor Richard from torturing the students, and as a result Ranma has to follow him to prevent him from causing a massacre in the human world?" Tsukune asked.

"Yes, that's right. Any other questions?"

"Wouldn't be easier to just lock the jerk up?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, that's right. Any other questions?"

Tsukune stared up into the Headmaster's cheerful, shadowed face despondently and then sighed, totally defeated. "I understand. We'll do what we need to do."

"Excellent," the hooded man said, lacing his fingers together, "then our meeting is concluded. Good luck with your mid-terms!"

"Yeah, thanks," Tsukune muttered as he turned around, "come on, Moka. Ranma, go ahead."

The Headmaster tilted his head to one side. "Go ahead with wha-"

Before he could finish that sentence Ranma was in the air, his knuckles descending on the sketchy administrator mercilessly.

_Whomp!_ To Ranma's surprise, his fist hit a curiously soft yet utterly unyielding barrier in front of the Headmaster, stopping his attack short and causing a previously invisible bubble of force to ripple into view around the irritating and bizarre man.

"A shield? You're kidding me!" Ranma complained as he landed in front of the Headmaster's desk, staring at the shimmering ripples caused by his punch.

"Where did you think I put all my skill points if not mind control?" the Headmaster said with an amused grin, "wards, seals, and barriers are my specialty."

Ranma followed one of the water-like ripples across the surface of the barrier. As the Headmaster was seated behind his desk, the shield covered a section of that as well, and Ranma watched the ripple reach the surface of the desk, then bounce off and ripple upward again.

"Wow, that desk is nice," Ranma said, sounding distracted as if he hadn't just tried to assault the head of the institution he was a student of, "what is it, mahogany?"

"Yggdrasil," the Headmaster said, pretending the same thing, "same finish, but its four times as heavy and nigh indestructible."

"It's a really big piece, too," Ranma said, grabbing onto the edge and lifting his side of it about an inch off the floor, taking careful note of how the magic barrier shifted around the furniture rather than holding it in place, "and not bolted down to the floor or anything."

The Headmaster nodded. "Yes, it's very... wait..."

* * *

Tsukune felt his spirits lift somewhat as he heard a loud crashing noise behind him. Although as a rule he didn't want to use violence against those that were not already using it themselves (and even then he encouraged other solutions), he had to admit that Ranma's occasional violent episodes against the more unsavory people they had to deal with were incredibly cathartic.

"Well, we had better check on..." Tsukune trailed off as he noticed that Moka seemed very upset about something, keeping her arms ramrod-straight with her hands gripped into fists.

"Are... you okay, Moka?" Tsukune asked hesitantly as several of the Headmaster's bodyguards dashed past them to the antechamber.

"I'm fine," Moka said sharply, her impeccable face twisted into a frown, "I was just having a little... discussion with my other self. We're not speaking to each other."

"You're not talking to yourself?" Ranma asked as he caught up with the pair, his hands in his pockets.

"Don't make it sound like I'm crazy," the vampiress muttered, pouting.

"Your jewelry talks to you and holds back your evil personality who wants me dead," Ranma pointed out, "if that happens to sound crazy, that's not really my fault."

"As I was saying," Tsukune interjected quickly, "we'll need to make a plan for where we'll stay at Witch's Knoll, and finish up our plans for our training courses while we're there."

He turned toward Ranma. "Ranma, we don't know how long you'll be gone, but hopefully you can join us in time to start that training program you were talking about. Hopefully the witches we'll be dealing with aren't hostile, but just in case I'll make sure Chopper and Kouma stay on their toes while you aren't with us."

"So we're assuming there are definitely witches, now?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I think we can rule out 'swamp gas'," Tsukune said sarcastically as he led the way out of the building.

_'You know, I think I rather like Tsukune better with this cynical streak of his. I think it gives him a more hardened, intellectual edge, don't you think?'_ Evil Moka asked.

'Not talking to you,' Moka thought back.

_'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were still in tantrum mode. Does baby need a cry? You just call me up again when you're ready to act like a big girl.'_

"MRRRGH!" Tsukune and Ranma flinched back Moka suddenly growled, and the two humans slowed their gait to follow several feet behind her.

"Oh yeah, not crazy at all," Ranma grumbled.

* * *

"All right class, pencils down," called the Dark Liege, clapping her hands over her head in a way that pulled her breasts up and tightened her cleavage wonderfully.

Those male students near the front groaned at the state of their midterm papers, having spent far too much time ogling their teacher and leaving large sections of their papers blank as a result. It hadn't helped that the Dark Liege insisted on watching the entire test while sitting on top of her desk, legs crossed tantalizingly while giving playful winks at any boys who made eye contact.

Ranma, who found his government teacher's antics more annoying than sexy, fared better in that he finished the test, though he was only marginally certain of his answers.

He turned around in his desk, giving Kana a tired smile.

"So what'd you think? I think I did okay, except for all that stuff about parliaments or diets or whatever." The only parts of government Ranma really understood was the part that took people's money and the part that shot at people who the government didn't like. The rest of it just seemed needlessly complex and wasteful to him, and he's pretty sure it would show in his test score.

Kana flushed slightly as she held her paper in front of her. "..."

"Ah. Well, that's good. I get bored easy, so I don't really study," Ranma explained with a shrug.

"I've noticed," the Dark Liege said as she stepped up to the pair, one hand on her hip as the other held the papers she had already collected, "I'd certainly hope that the ones responsible for keeping the school in order recognize the limits to their authority and the checks imposed on them by the elected student council."

"Is that how it works?" Ranma drawled as he slipped his test paper into the stack, "well, thanks for the heads up."

"I'm being serious," the Dark Liege said as her forehead eye narrowed, "you have a real responsibility, Saotome, and it would be best that you take it seriously. Kuyo subverted the control that the council had over him, and as expected, the student body grew more and more restless under him until you deposed him. If you don't recognize-"

Ranma quickly got tired of being lectured after he was already done with his midterm test, and he interrupted the demoness as he reached in his pocket. "Oh! That's right! I found something of yours, Teach," he said, drawing out a large sapphire and holding it up in front of her.

The Dark Liege froze, her jaw hanging open and all three of her eyes wide as saucers.

"Oops," Ranma said, casually tossing the soul shard to the side and sending it bouncing under several desks, "looks like I dropped it."

_Crash! Wham!_ Chaos ensued as the demoness dove for her treasure, breaking through several rows of desks and sending students and test papers flying as she scrambled after the gem.

"Well, I'm done with the test, so I'm out," he confided to Kana, glancing behind him.

The girl's only visible eye was wide with shock, glancing between Ranma and the tangle of students trying to get out of the way of the crazed demoness. "...?"

"I found it. I won't say where," Ranma mumbled evasively, "it's just too bad that trick will only work four more times."

Ranma immediately made good his escape, dashing out of the classroom before his fellow Committee member (or more importantly, his teacher) could question him.

* * *

As the students recovered from the ordeal of midterms, there was another group besides the Protection Committee that more on their mind than academics.

Kuyo waited in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest. For the first time in quite a while, he wore the standard Youkai Academy uniform, without the long coat that had for so long been the most visible symbol of his office.

He found it... uncomfortable, like he had been sent into battle unarmed and unarmored. It wasn't as if he had lost the coat itself, either, but this meeting required some level of secrecy, and Kuyo definitely noticed he got a lot of attention nowadays when he wore his long coat, along with a fair amount of smirking and snickering.

Behind him stood Jin and Volos, the only two Enforcers that Kuyo considered high enough rank to be let into the planning session.

Not that any of them had any official rank to speak of nowadays, but still.

"Kuyo," said a voice from above, startling the three monsters somewhat.

Kuyo's gaze jerked upward, and he saw Keito hanging down from one of the ceiling air ducts, her head sporting a total of eight eyes that were carefully scanning in all directions.

"Keito. How good to see you," Kuyo said warmly, his smile decidedly malevolent, "I was beginning to think you were starting to get used to your new position under Aono."

"I suppose I was, in the way that one gets used to a neighbor's obnoxious dog always barking at them," the spider woman quipped as she dropped down into the hall.

This particular stretch of hallway was clear of other students at the moment, as they had all seemingly rushed back to their dorms or were attending club meetings to discuss their trip over the break.

Kuyo nodded, a smirk crossing his features. "Come, then. We have much to discuss."

Kuyo led the way to a nearby classroom, Jin and Volos following silently (for once) while they eyed Keito suspiciously. Keito's extra eyes closed themselves up, melting into her skin and vanishing under her hair.

Kuyo opened the door and stepped inside, only to pause in annoyance when he found that it was occupied. Four girls were sitting around a table covered in papers, obviously in the midst of discussing something before Kuyo showed up.

"Kuyo? What do you want?" one of the girls asked in disgust, immediately recognizing the former captain of the Protection Committee.

Kuyo pointed to the girls looking at him in askance. "I'm confiscating this room. Remove yourselves immediately."

One girl gulped and started to gather up the papers, but her friends were apparently not so easily intimidated.

"Excuse me? 'Confiscate'? Who do you think you are?"

"Buzz off, Kuyo. You're not an Enforcer anymore," the first girl sneered, "we don't have to listen to you."

As the platinum-haired man glowered, the girl gathering papers winced. "Ah, m-maybe we should just go, guys. There's no sense in provoking him, right?"

Kuyo raised his arms, causing a look of alarm in Keito as flames started wrapping around his hands.

"Your friend is a smart girl," Kuyo said evenly as the defiant girls clenched their teeth angrily, "it's too bad you've gotten her killed, too."

"STOP!" Keito shouted, startling everybody as she grabbed Kuyo's forearm and pulled it up toward the ceiling.

"Eh? What're you doing, Fangs?" Volos asked, raising an eyebrow, "they friends of yours or something?"

Keito hissed as she saw Kuyo's confused expression. "Are you TRYING to get us all killed? If you start incinerating people left and right, someone WILL notice, and Aono WILL have you hunted down! And possibly me as well!"

"What if we leave no witnesses? That's what I'd do, if I was planning this. Which I'm not," Jin pointed out.

Keito really felt like slapping every one of the men surrounding her, but instead she dropped Kuyo's arm and pointed to the hall. "Let's just use another room! I'm not going to risk being tornadoed to death to avoid two minutes of walking!" Keito snapped, stepping out of the doorway.

Kuyo said nothing, stopping only briefly to glance at the girls occupying the room. He expected them to be looking smug or triumphant, but instead they looked stunned, as if they could barely comprehend what they were looking at.

"Tch. You're lucky I happen to be in the middle of a sensitive operation," Kuyo said haughtily as he followed Jin and Volos after Keito, "I'll spare you on the advice of my subordinate. Don't forget this."

It was unlikely that any of the girls would easily forget that incident, and not because of Kuyo's threats.

None of them had ever seen a monster back down under threat of official punishment before. Until recently any student that could easily kill four random monsters they encountered in the halls had nothing to fear from the campus authorities, being too powerful to be easily stopped whether or not the Protection Committee felt like stopping them.

Evidently, that equation had changed, and now even powerful monsters had to reign themselves in for fear of Tsukune's attentions. There was now a considerable risk associated with even a "safe" murder, and suddenly all the rules that had been freely flaunted at Youkai Academy were back in play.

These were the thoughts that the dominated the girls' minds as they went back to planning their club trip, each one feeling that they had just witnessed something very, very important.

* * *

"In the future, a verbal warning will suffice, Keito," Kuyo said, frowning as he entered another classroom ahead of the others, "I don't like being manhandled."

"Neither do I, which is precisely why I had to make SURE you didn't hurt anyone," Keito snapped, surprising Kuyo with the vehemence in her tone, "Aono is just waiting for me to mess up so he can get rid of me, and Saotome is waiting for the chance to tap-dance on my exoskeleton. Any violence that is not strictly necessary could bring everything to ruin!"

"Yes, we should all get along!" Volos said with a happy smile.

"Until such time as we can eliminate those fools, yes, precisely," Keito said as she drew herself up, "so for the next few days, you all have to actually follow school rules as students, or you'll find one of my 'co-workers' at your door."

Kuyo didn't appreciate Keito's authoritative tone or the way she hadn't referred to him as "Lord" since they had last seen each other, but decided to put those concerns aside for the moment. "You said 'for the next few days'. What happens after that?"

"After that, we're going on a little trip to the human world. A place called 'Witch's Knoll'."

"Why are you training in some witch's backyard?" Jin asked.

Keito shrugged. "Not everything was explained to me, but it has something, or perhaps everything, to do with the Headmaster being a jerk."

Kuyo gave a reluctant nod. "True. So they're going to be in the human world during break. Are you suggesting we take the school back while they're gone?"

"And then what? Enjoy your office until Aono comes back at the end of the week and kicks you out of it again?" Keito asked, rolling her eyes. "No. The plan is for you to attack the Protection Committee in the human world, during our training camp."

"Ugh! We have to go all the way to the human world? But I get carsick!" Volos whined.

"While I don't get carsick, I'm kind of wondering about the wisdom of this plan as well," Jin said uneasily.

"It's less wisdom than divine fortune," Keito explained, "Saotome will not be with us."

THAT got the boys' attention.

"So you're saying we attack everyone else..." Jin said, scratching at his beard.

"Yes. With a little bit of strategy, you can take out the Protection Committee without Saotome in the way. Once they're all gone, Saotome will have no more reason to be in the Protection Committee; even the student council doesn't trust him to be in charge of the Committee himself, and he can't manage the task on his own, even if he wanted to. We'll be able to take our positions back through guile or by force, and if Saotome tries to stop us, or finds out that you killed his friends, he won't be able to stand up to the entire Committee."

At this point, Keito wilted slightly. "At least, I don't THINK so... but you should probably try not to leave any witnesses anyway."

Jin smiled. "Yes... With Saotome gone, there is considerable scope for removing the remaining officers."

Volos rubbed his hands together as he grinned hatefully. "I don't care who I have to go up against; just give me a target and set me loose!"

Kuyo nodded, quite pleased with this new direction. "I'm still somewhat worried about that Gamaroshi fellow, so Keito, I want you do deal with him."

"No," Keito said immediately.

"I know he's a fire beast, so just bite him early and-" it was at this point that Kuyo finally realized that his command had been refused, "wait, what?"

"I will not be attacking anyone," Keito said firmly, arms crossed under her breasts.

"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Kuyo snapped, starting to get upset at the spider woman's attitude, "we can't take any half-measures with this! We may never get such a great chance again!"

"That's partially why I won't be fighting," Keito drawled, "first of all, if this fails somehow, then I don't want to be removed from the Committee. I'm risking enough as it is."

Then her eyes narrowed. "But more importantly, I have a crucial role in the assault: keeping Tobaki away from the fighting."

"Awww, it's so nice that you're looking out for her!" Volos said happily, clapping his hands together.

"Wait, so we won't have Tobaki's support either?" Jin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Tobaki... has adapted rather well to the new Committee," Keito said regretfully, rubbing her jaw, "remember, her thought process is... different than ours. She trusts Aono and I doubt I can turn her against him. So the most I can do is fabricate a good reason for her to not be there."

"You couldn't just find a good reason to send her away for a while and then attack yourself? Even taking down Aono would be useful," Kuyo said, looking very irritated.

"As I said, I don't want to lose my position if this fails," Keito said stubbornly, "nor do I want to be on Saotome's hit list if it succeeds. I WON'T be attacking anyone."

Kuyo clenched his teeth in anger, his eyes flaring a bright white. "I'm giving you an ORDER, Keito!"

"And since when do students give orders to the Protection Committee?" Keito snapped back, "I'm already helping you and betraying Aono with this, Kuyo, but I'm only willing to put so much on the line. If you want to be captain again, then you'll have to earn that privilege through your own efforts, not just mine."

Kuyo straightened, his face set in a frown. "This attitude of yours may reflect poorly once I am captain again, Keito."

The spider woman smirked. "I will endure whatever punishment you see fit, AFTER Aono and that idiot Saotome are dealt with. Best of luck until then, Kuyo."

The three men silently watched Keito walk out of the room and into the hall, until Volos suddenly yawned.

"Are we done yet? I'm bored, and all this devious plotting is exhausting."

"When have you EVER plotted ANYTHING?" Jin demanded, somewhat offended.

"Silence, both of you," Kuyo snapped, scratching his chin lightly, "this is... troubling. With both Keito and Tobaki refusing to fight for us, the field is not slanted in our favor very far. Gamaroshi will still be a big problem, and there's that other girl... what was her name? The vampire?"

"What, Akashiya? Forget about her, she's as harmless as Aono," Jin scoffed, "the hellhound, though..." he grimaced, remembering the painful conclusion of his fight with Kouma, "we may need to steer clear of him. Still, these conditions are quite favorable. I can have a viable plan ready by evening."

"Good. Do so," Kuyo commanded, "and make sure it doesn't involve surrendering this time."

Jin's expression soured. "What about the back-up plan?"

"There will BE no back-up plan, because I will not accept failure in this mission," Kuyo said firmly, "we WILL succeed, and the pests that think to have replaced us WILL die. Anything else is unacceptable. Is that clear?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, because rushing in with lethal intent and no option for backing down worked SO well the last time. And look where it got you!" Volos said snidely.

Kuyo gave the hydra a strange look. "Volos, did you grow a new head, or-"

"Nah, that was Two. Everyone keeps saying that all he does is whine, so he's trying to branch out into sarcasm," Volos explained with a sigh.

"Which is really just whining with irony," Jin pointed out.

"Well, change is hard! I'm proud of him for making the effort!" Volos said brightly, grinning.

'I have completely forgotten why I bring Volos along with me anywhere, ever,' Kuyo thought to himself. Out loud, he said, "All right then, you may retire for today. Tomorrow we'll meet here again to discuss Jin's plan of attack."

"Yes, Lord Kuyo!" the two minions shouted in unison.

* * *

Ranma and Tsukune exited their room together, both of them perfectly silent and looking rather grim. Tsukune was holding onto a typical good luck charm for tests, of the sort usually dispensed from Shinto shrines, that his mother had mailed to him.

Ranma was holding onto one of his giant spiders, which was perhaps even less useful for overcoming the trial they were about to face in that it didn't even bring him some sort of confidence boost or sense of hope. He was just worried that there might be a cat somewhere near the grade postings, and he didn't want to freak out in front of so many people.

"So. Mid-terms," Tsukune finally ventured as they stepped out of the dorm structure.

"Yeap," Ranma said, glancing around as the shiny black arachnid clinging to his flank seemed to similarly keep watch, "how were yours?"

Tsukune shrugged miserably, having no good answer for his roommate. Tsukune had always managed average grades almost as a rule, but he'd always had to study hard to even do that well. This was his first year in high school, however, and unlike Ranma hadn't taken any unconventional classes involving devil hunters. The "normal" classes were challenging mostly because the teachers were either weirdos or outright psychopaths, but none of that translated to easy test questions.

"I think I won't have extra classes, since Moka helped me study, but what about you? You've spent a lot of time helping out with Committee duties and training your spiders... and dueling with Chopper or Kouma, and scoping out the fight club..." Tsukune frowned, "actually, it almost seemed like you were specifically trying to stay too busy to join us."

Ranma sweatdropped as he turned his head away. "Well, the atmosphere between you two is a little..." he sounded slightly squeamish as he finished, "I just feel like I'd be in the way, that's all."

Tsukune flushed as he started his usual string of denials. "In the way of what? We weren't up to anything! We were just studying!"

"You always come back with a pair of fresh holes in your neck," Ranma deadpanned, "that's a pretty awful hickey."

"Well... how did YOUR tests go, anyway?" Tsukune asked, deciding to try to deflect the conversation away from his and Moka's alone time.

"Not too bad, I guess," Ranma mumbled, "Jadeite's class was easy because I already knew what the most vulnerable organs in the human body are. Liege's was hard because governments are stupid and she's just a lousy teacher anyway. I haven't done any of my physical science homework, ever, but I did take that class at Furinkan so I think I at least passed it."

"And math?" Tsukune asked, since they had the same math class.

"I actually think I might do okay with that one, too. Miss Ririko is a pretty good teacher, I think. All the guys in our class just spend too much time trying to look down her shirt to pay attention to what she's saying," Ranma mused.

Tsukune chuckled weakly. "Yeah... Those guys..." he mumbled, feeling envious of his roommate's apparent immunity to women.

"Tsukuuuuune!" Ranma dodged backward as Kurumu swooped in from his side, latching onto the younger human and squeezing his face against her chest.

It would have been her ordinary daily greeting, save that Ranma immediately noticed the buxom schoolgirl seemed upset rather than pleased as she smothered Tsukune in her cleavage.

"Kurumu? What's wrong?" Ranma asked as Tsukune flailed his arms helplessly.

Kurumu wasn't crying or anything, but she pouted miserably as she finally released Tsukune. "I just saw my score! They want me to take remedial classes over the break!"

"That bad, huh?" Ranma asked.

Kurumu nodded bleakly, and then picked up Ranma's spider, hugging it in her arms like any other pet. "This is so stupid! I can't miss the training camp just to get ten points higher on a test!"

"Well, why didn't you join me and Moka when we were studying?" Tsukune asked. Unlike Ranma, he hadn't directly invited Kurumu, but it wasn't like the succubus had any problems inviting herself wherever she wanted to go, especially when he was there.

Kurumu soured even further. "Well, being with you and Moka when you're studying is a little..."

"I know, right?" Ranma affirmed, rolling his eyes, "all the shy, awkward glances and blushing and stammering every time they touch just makes you want to slap them."

Kurumu nodded and sighed sadly as she stroked the spider's thorax. "Of course, I would've been happy to study with you ALONE, but it's not like we would have gotten any actual studying done..."

Tsukune had nothing to say to them, his face a bright red as he walked quickly to the large board on display outside the main school building.

There was a crowd of students gathered, as expected, to see their scores, but to Tsukune's surprise those that happened to notice him approaching quickly moved to the side out of his way.

He wasn't sure how he felt about crowds parting before him as if he was someone to be feared, but he set the concern aside for now as he moved close enough to look over the class rankings.

He started in the middle, as he had always been there before. And, lo and behold, there was his name, well above the ranking that the board noted as containing those who had to make up classes during the break.

Tsukune let out a sigh of relief, glad that his plans for teaching the Protection Committee about when it's not okay to break someone's legs hadn't been derailed by his math teacher's inability to button her blouse.

"Hey, I scored higher than you!" Ranma said brightly.

Tsukune forced out a smile and a shrug, hiding a brief moment on indignation. Ranma WAS repeating the year, after all. "All right, good. Then that means we're both clear."

"Not that it does me any good," Ranma grumbled, his mood dipping as he considered the "break" that was waiting for him, "I think I'd rather take extra classes than have to baby-sit the psychos all week."

"But think of the catastrophic loss of life that would happen if you weren't around!" Tsukune pointed out helpfully.

"Yeah, there is that," Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head as he looked at the top end of the list. "Yukari got first."

"Of course I did!"

Tsukune, Ranma, and Kurumu all turned around to greet Yukari and Moka, who had arrived together.

Yukari had her hands on her hips and looked even smugger than usual with her name at the top of the scoreboard. "And Moka scored thirteenth! Just below Tobaki!"

"So THAT'S who that is," Ranma mumbled uneasily, looking at the long series of nonsensical characters next to the number above Moka's. It looked completely alien, even more so than other foreign writing systems he had seen in books, and just looking at the letters seemed to be bringing on a headache.

"Ah, Hokuto scored second highest. Not very surprising," Tsukune admitted.

Ranma shifted over to the other side of the board, shaking his head as he found Kurumu's name in fairly close proximity to another familiar peer.

"Well, looks like you'll have Chopper to keep you company, Kurumu. Annnnnd..."

Ranma trailed off as he read to the end of the list, not recognizing a single other name. "That's weird. Is Kouma not on here?"

"Why are you looking at THAT end of the score board?" asked the irritated hellhound, approaching from behind Moka as he overheard their conversation.

"What, you mean you actually passed?" Yukari asked, looking shocked.

"Wow, congrats Eyebrows!" Ranma said cheerfully, approaching the hellborne canine and patting him on the shoulder.

"What're you being so patronizing for?" Kouma asked, a vein popping up on his head, "you thought I wouldn't pass?"

"Well, it did cross my mind," Ranma admitted with a shrug.

"Uh, Ranma?" Tsukune tugged on the older human's shirt, "Kouma's was the tenth highest score."

The various expressions of condescending praise turned to surprise, which naturally annoyed Kouma even further.

Yukari's expression quickly returned to normal, though. "Ah, I get it. So did you copy someone else's test or just threaten to wallop the instructor?"

Kouma's eye flared red as he bared his fangs at the young witch. "Hey! Don't accuse me of cheating! I worked for that score, pipsqueak!"

Yukari looked skeptical, but Ranma waved off her assumption.

"Nah, Kouma's not that kind of guy. He respects authority and is about as subtle as a freight train," he explained, shaking his head, "he didn't cheat."

"But then how is it possible? A scoring mistake?" Kurumu asked.

Kouma's eyes narrowed as he looked at his fellow Committee members suspiciously. "Hey... do you all think I'm some kind of idiot?"

While Moka winced, few of the others bothered to downplay their assumptions.

"Yes, absolutely," said Yukari.

"Well, I admit there's SOME doubt now, but yeah," said Kurumu.

Mizore's head poked down from beneath the score board, hanging upside-down. She nodded, then pulled her head back up to once again disappear from view.

"Sorry. You do kind of give off that vibe," Ranma admitted, shrugging awkwardly.

"Now that's not fair at all," Tsukune chided the others, being the only one who had never gone out of his way to judge the hellhound, "I know Kouma has a difficult time interacting with people normally, but that's never stopped anyone from acknowledging Yukari as a genius. He's a perfectly competent student!"

Kouma looked somewhat surprised that Tsukune had actually had something nice to say about him, and for once couldn't think of anything to say despite his lingering anger at the others.

"Yeah, I guess..." Kurumu admitted reluctantly, "though if he'd occasionally spit out something intelligent instead of, you know, FIRE, then we might be able to take him seriously."

"I don't want to hear that from YOU, miss Remedial Lessons," the hellhound growled, a few sparks leaking from between his teeth.

"Hey, HEY! No fire! You'll cook poor little Guile!" Kurumu protested, holding up Ranma's pet spider, "plus, you know, me."

"So, what, do you study a lot?" Ranma asked Kouma, still rather intrigued that the hellhound had done better than Moka, who didn't have much to do EXCEPT study.

Kouma snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I only have two goals: to make it into law school and become strong enough to kill my father."

"It figures that both goals would be horrifying and destructive," Kurumu quipped.

"Shut it! Anyway, I set aside most of every day training to accomplish those two goals. It's been... HARDER since I was press-ganged into the Protection Committee, but still I make sure to find time for going over my notes or practicing my boxing."

"How devoted of you," Yukari said awkwardly, as if it strained her to pay a compliment to someone she didn't especially like, "I just had no idea you were capable of that kind of discipline when you can barely go two sentences without literally exploding in fury."

"I think the fact that you're all still alive says plenty about my self-control," the hellhound snapped.

"Pff. You would have killed me by now if you could manage it," Ranma scoffed.

"It's hard to aim fireballs coming from your mouth," Kouma grumbled.

"All right then, I still have preparations to make, so everybody that can make the trip should meet here at noon in two days! Mizore, could you tell Tobaki, Keito, and Kana?" Tsukune asked.

Mizore's hand appeared beneath the board, making an upside-down "V".

"All right, thank you. I'll see you all soon."

* * *

Two days later saw the gathering of the Protection Committee at the school outskirts, each one of them with a small bag of personal items (save Kurumu, who seemed to have brought the entire contents of her room and had convinced Chopper to carry most of it for her). The bus was barely visible in the distance, slowly approaching over the unpaved road that led from the school to whatever strange barrier seemed to separate it from the outside world.

"This is so exciting!" Tobaki squealed as she clung to Keito's arm, "we never got to go on trips when Kuyo was in charge! I haven't been on a field trip since elementary school in the Demonweb Pits!"

Kurumu quirked an eyebrow as she shouldered a duffel bag almost as big as she was. "What kinds of things did you study there?"

"Elements, of course," Tobaki said, as if it were obvious, "it's a neat program, but you have to catch your own lunch."

"Don't you mean 'bring'?" Kurumu asked unwisely.

"No, I imagine she didn't," Keito answered for the yochlol, ruffling Tobaki's hair fondly. "By the way, weren't you supposed to be staying behind for extra classes?"

Kurumu smirked, giving Chopper an appreciative glance over her shoulder. "We had a talk with the teacher in charge of remedial classes, and convinced him that our training with Tsukune was important enough for us to make up the test scores when we come back."

Keito snorted. "And may I assume that this 'talk' involved your allure charm and a good bit of exhibitionism?"

Kurumu snorted back. "As a matter of fact, it didn't. I managed to convince him with nothing but an appeal to reason and Chopper's help."

* * *

(The previous day)

"So we'll be studying the entire time we're at the camp anyway, except that we'll be learning about ethics and the proper ways to protect the peace here on campus!" Kurumu pleaded, her hands clasped together over her chest. "Tsukune wants to make sure all of us in the Protection Committee learn to be the best Enforcers that we can, so that everyone in Youkai Academy is safe and nobody has to suffer under the abuse of another just because they're stronger! Don't you see how important this is?"

"Yes. Yes, I do," answered the teacher in charge of remedial classes. He had to almost shout to be heard, as he was currently being held upside-down out the window, with Chopper hanging on to one of his legs from the fourth-story window.

"Then you'll let us postpone the extra classes?" Kurumu asked brightly.

"Will you learn not to ever do this to teachers again?"

Chopper shrugged. "No promises. We don't know the curriculum."

"We DO promise not to drop you if you let us off, though," Kurumu pointed out.

"Good enough. By all means, pull me up and LEAVE."

* * *

"Chopper helped a lot," Kurumu reaffirmed.

"Lovely," Keito drawled, annoyed to hear that the top-heavy girl would be coming along on the trip after all, "so why is Saotome's pet spider coming along too?"

"For cuddles!" Kurumu said brightly, petting the huge black arachnid clinging to one side of the bag she was holding.

"Greeeat..." sighed Keito. 'I hope she dies slowly.'

"Tsukune, are you all right? You don't look very happy that we're setting out," Moka remarked.

Tsukune was waiting by the edge of the road, trying and failing to look as if he wasn't sulking.

"It's no big deal, Moka. Well, not really," Tsukune said, trying and mostly failing to reassure her, "it's just kind of hard to feel confident in this trip after the Headmaster got involved."

Moka nodded sadly. "I know what you mean. I can't help but feel like we're being set up for something."

"And then, of course, he had to go and send Ranma off somewhere else," Tsukune griped.

Glancing behind him, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one disappointed. Although Mizore and Kana had been informed ahead of time that the pigtailed boy wouldn't be joining them until later if at all, both girls looked like they were being transported to the gallows. Such was their depression that they even seemed to be getting along; Mizore, being the stronger of the two, was carrying Kana's duffel bag while the siren girl muttered complaints that only Mizore was close enough to hear, as apparently she was not agitated enough to speak normally.

"Ranma has an important job to do, though," Moka protested.

"Of course I know that," Tsukune said wearily, "and if lives weren't on the line, he'd definitely be here for us. It's not his fault," Tsukune stopped speaking briefly as the bus rolled up in front of the group, its poorly-maintained brakes squealing loudly enough to interrupt the human boy, "but why does the Headmaster tolerate teachers like Richard in the first place?"

"For the same reason he tolerates me," said the driver suddenly as the passenger's entry door on the bus slid open with a hiss, "our wit is sharp as a KNIFE!"

Tsukune and Moka stared at the man incredulously.

"That's IT?" Tsukune asked, looking fairly disgusted, "you're being serious right now?"

"Well, we do all belong to the same country club," the driver admitted, briefly talking like a normal person, "but yeah, it's mostly just his sense of humor." Then he grinned again and his high-pitched tone returned. "Now hurry aboard! It's a long trip to the OTHER SIDE!"

* * *

"So then, of course the guy doesn't answer me back, because I vaporized his head, right?" explained Richard, shrugging helplessly, "so I'm all, 'Wait. I did that wrong. Interrogations are hard.'"

"HA HA!" barked the Headmaster, his usual grin even wider than usual. "Really though, I'll bet that's an intensely painful way to die."

"It better be, otherwise I'll have to retrain my entire build," muttered the warlock.

Ranma trudged behind the pair, his hands in his pockets and his mood in the doldrums. "Hey, when are we going to meet up with the third Stooge and get a move on? I don't have all week to listen to you dolts."

"Mister Saotome, you should really learn not to be so uptight," the Headmaster said, his smile unbearably aggravating, "you're going to be accompanying your teachers for quite some time. You should all get along!"

"Not finding murder funny isn't 'uptight'. It's called 'sane'," Ranma grumbled.

"Well, whatever it is, you have too much," the Headmaster said with a shrug, "you'll be going on many more unpleasant little errands for me, so you'd best get used to them."

Ranma glared silently at the smiling hooded man for several seconds before he spoke again. "Your legs healed awfully quick from being crushed under that desk."

"We have a pretty good health plan," Richard said, shrugging, "it doesn't cover decapitations like I wanted, but those deductibles have to come from somewhere, you know?"

The Headmaster chuckled. "I commend you on your creativity, but you won't be getting through any more of my barr-"

_Bam!_ Ranma stamped on the edge of the floorboard under his right foot.

_Crack!_ The other end of the board, being completely under the Headmaster's barrier, snapped up and slammed into the white-robed mystic right between his legs.

"You should really hire some more maintenance staff," Ranma deadpanned as he walked past the stunned Headmaster, "this place is a wreck, with loose floorboards and walls and everything. Someone could get hurt."

The Headmaster didn't answer, and in fact his expression remained completely frozen in his aggravating smile as he slowly tilted forward and collapsed onto the dusty wooden floor.

"Your disrespect for authority gives me hope for future generations," Richard said amicably as he and Ranma continued down the hall.

"Swell," Ranma answered, clearly not impressed by the compliment, "by the way, I'm kind of surprised that you're still here. I figured you and Jadeite would have taken off by now."

Richard raised the pale strip of flesh where his eyebrow used to be. "And leave you behind? Why would I do that?"

Ranma looked honestly confused. "To kill and destroy without anyone to stop you?"

"And where's the fun in that?" Richard asked.

Upon seeing that the martial artist was no less confused, Richard suddenly swung an arm over Ranma's shoulder and leaned down. "Listen kid, why did you take up Karate or whatever? It isn't just to keep in shape, right?"

"It's to beat up freaks like you, mostly," Ranma deadpanned.

"Exactly!" Richard said brightly, startling the human boy, "but what if there were no freaks like me? Or even any nasty humans or murderous animals? What are all your skills and techniques good for then?"

Ranma frowned as he tried to move past his instinctive urge to make snappy remarks and actually considered the question. "Well, it makes for a pretty good tea ceremony..."

"Yeah, sure. The correct answer is: nothing. Your popularity is built upon your fighting skills, and those skills are only useful so long as there's someone awful enough for you to beat on without consequences," Richard lectured, pointing one sharpened finger into the air, "if all of us villains disappeared, then Aono and the rest of the students would be in good shape, but where would you be?"

Ranma felt slightly queasy as he considered the warlock's point. "Well, I still have that tea ceremony thing..."

"Don't believe you," Richard snapped before continuing with his lecture, "evil is the same way. There's only a POINT to it if someone is going to stand up to us. Without a hero, what is a villain but a nasty little man with a cool outfit and lots of Daddy issues?"

"I didn't realize it was that complex," Ranma said rather bitterly as he considered that the school's resident mass-murderer considered him essential entertainment.

"Indeed, it is," the warlock said sagely as they finally reached the classroom where Jadeite awaited them.

Then he leaned down again to whisper to his student, "Besides, I don't want to spend the whole break with Jadeite alone. That guy is a massive tool."

"Yeah, I'll give you that," Ranma admitted as he opened the door to the classroom.

"Well, well, good of you to show up. DO take your time, it's not like we're on a schedule here," Jadeite said stiffly, his hands raised over a swirling pit of darkness stretched vertically over a portion of the blackboard, "I'm just supporting a hole in the fabric of time and space and trying to keep reality from asserting itself, it's really no trouble. Don't hurry on my account."

"Such a tool," Richard mumbled under his breath.

"What?" asked Jadeite.

"Nothing. Just wondering if we'll need any tools while we're there," Richard lied, "well, let's be off!"

As Richard stepped through the quivering gateway, Jadeite's eyes narrowed at Ranma. "Saotome, I DO hope that you'll keep your interference to a minimum while we're engaged in club activities in the human world. It is necessary for the-"

"Prof, I'm not gonna let you kill the Sailor Senshi," Ranma deadpanned.

"Stop reading my diary!" Jadeite suddenly snarled.

"Then put a better lock on it, dork," Ranma said, rolling his eyes as he stepped into the portal ahead of the fuming dark general.

* * *

"Oh, wow! It's the human world!"

"It's so bright! What happened to all the clouds?"

"Hey! I see the city!"

Tsukune couldn't help but feel relieved as he glanced the skyline of Tokyo out of the bus's window, finally having left behind the nightmare dimension that contained Youkai Academy. No matter how well he adapted to the school or how important his friends were to him, the fact remained that, at Youkai Academy, he was a mere human among crowds of terrifying creatures that could, and in some cases wanted to, gut him on a whim. To be suddenly relieved of that pressure was a fantastic comfort.

'Not that I'm COMPLETELY safe even now,' Tsukune thought, casting an annoyed glance at Keito.

After spending a moment to glare, he turned to face forward again to speak to the bus driver.

"So you said that Youkai Academy is actually in another dimension than the human world? Is that why humans never wander into there?"

"Correct," the driver said, smirking around the pipe clenched between his teeth, "the Academy is locked in a small reality barrier built by the Headmaster. The equivalent space in the human world is nothing but rocky outcroppings and infertile plains. So a human could be walking right next you, or through you, and neither of you would ever know it!"

The driver jabbed a thumb behind him. "The only point where the two dimensions overlap is the passage I used, and even then it only works if you can see the LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!"

Tsukune considered that for a moment. "Then what about that Starbucks that was in the middle of the tunnel? What's that about?"

"The company went transdimensional last year," the driver said, immediately dropping into a normal, less creepy tone of voice, "I personally think it's a damn shame when even magic force fields can't keep those vultures at bay."

"Hey! Those people are just trying to make a living!" Tobaki said unexpectedly, poking her head up behind Tsukune's seat.

"They could do it without ruining the natural splendor in the communities they infest!" the driver shot back.

"What 'natural splendor'? It's a tunnel!"

"Oh, of course. We can't have open spaces anywhere, can we. Better fill them up with coffee shops and fast food joints!"

Tsukune decided that the conversation wasn't about to return to the nature of Youkai Academy's dimensional separation from the rest of the world, so he got up out of his seat and addressed the rest of the Protection Committee.

"All right, who here has never been to a human country before?" he asked, "or at least, the inhabited parts?"

Yukari, Kurumu, Tobaki, Mizore, Chopper, and Tobaki all raised their hands (though Tobaki didn't stop arguing with the driver).

"All right, so some of you are familiar with the place, and probably have some idea of what to expect," Tsukune said with a nod, "why don't we take turns explaining our experiences to everyone? Moka, you go first."

Moka hesitated for a moment, then stood up out of her seat when she saw everyone's expectant gazes (except Tobaki, who was in the middle of explaining Adam Smith's theory of specialized labor).

"Well, I went to middle school in the human world. I didn't make any friends back then, because vampires weren't quite as popular with pre-teen girls as they are now," she admitted, lacing her fingers together nervously, "as for the humans, well, they weren't very nice, but none of them ever tried to kill me or anyone else I knew. I think I really took that for granted when I went to Youkai Academy."

"Thank you, Moka," Tsukune said, looking serious, "although there certainly are violent humans, you usually don't run into them in schools and most neighborhoods. And even when you do, those humans almost never want to actually kill you."

"Why not? Are they just too weak?" Chopper asked.

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Humans... take death pretty seriously, Chopper. Even violent criminals will usually try to avoid killing because they're more likely to get caught and punished more harshly. Anyway, Kouma, you're next."

The boxer grimaced as he stood up. "Well, I actually only lived in the human world for a year after moving out of Hell, but it was really, REALLY different. Like Aono said, people tend to really freak out about violence here. Especially the parents of whoever you just beat up. Even when you DON'T kill them! I can't tell you how many times-"

"Thank you Kouma, that was very helpful," Tsukune interrupted, a strained smile on his face, "as Kouma said, even non-lethal violence tends to attract a lot of attention and upset people when around humans. Kana, you lived around humans before?"

"..." Kana shied away from standing up, mumbling her response in a voice that was completely swallowed by the bus. "..."

"Wow, that's pretty harsh," Mizore said in her usual deadpan voice while everyone else sweatdropped, as she was sitting next Kana and thus the only one close enough hear.

"Okay... Thanks, Kana." Then Tsukune steeled himself and glanced toward Keito. "Keito, how about you?"

"I spent some time in a rural village growing up, learning how to hunt, weave, and sneak, that's all," Keito said with a shrug, not bothering to stand up, "I found that humans tended to keep to themselves, with a select few being far too curious for their own good. There are some individuals who will doggedly pursue anything unusual, trying to figure out the truth even at great risk to their own lives. For example, there were several men that seemed quite determined to find the source of the massive webs me and my siblings wove while we were there. We had many close calls avoiding them."

Keito fell silent, but soon realized that everyone was still staring at her expectantly. "That's it. That's all I have."

"Oh. Uh..." Tsukune was clearly surprised by how tame the account was, "thank you Keito, that was actually pretty useful."

"More useful than what really happened, I'm sure," Keito drawled, smashing Tsukune's foolish glimmer of hope for the spider woman.

"Fine. Speaking as a human, I should say that while humans can be dangerous together, individually we're usually harmless and can be reasoned with. We don't know - technically - what we'll find at Witch's Knoll, so keep to your humans forms unless I give the okay and try to avoid contact with humans in general."

Chopper raised his hand.

"Yes Chopper? You have question?"

The troll put his hand down. "I didn't know you were a human. What's up with that?"

Tsukune fell silent, having been caught flat-footed. Ranma had outed him to most of the new Protection Committee as a human, while Keito knew from the old Protection Committee's findings. It had never occurred to Tsukune that anyone might have been left out of that loop.

Finally, he shrugged. "Well, who better to guide you in the human world and teach you the principles of human society's justice system than a human?"

"Ah, good point," Chopper mused, stroking his massive chin.

'Ranma was right. Maybe I'm being way too cautious about hiding my humanity,' he mused.

"All right kids, here we are!" the driver said suddenly as the bus's brakes started to squeal.

Tsukune glanced out the window as he held on to his backrest so that he wasn't thrown off his feet. A vast field of sunflowers stretched out into a veritable forest over the knoll, with the road and a single large shed being the only signs of civilization outside of the distant skyline.

"Gather your things, everyone! I know you're just DYING to stretch your legs!" the driver cackled.

"So when are you going to come back for us?" Tsukune asked as he gathered his backpack.

The driver laughed.

Then he laughed some more.

Tsukune patiently waited for him to stop laughing.

He didn't.

"Never mind," the human grumbled as he stepped off the bus, followed by the driver's cackling.

The driver seemed to get his laughter under control as the other students left the bus one by one.

"Make sure you have all your CARRION with you! Have a good time, and don't feed the crows, if you know what I mean!" the driver said as the monstrous teenagers each wished there was a hiking route that connected Youkai Academy to the outside world just so they wouldn't have to be barraged by puns during their trip.

"Thanks for the ride, hippy," snapped Tobaki as she stepped off, casting the old man a contemptuous glare.

"Enjoy your stay, Nazi," the driver snapped back, a vein popping up on his head.

* * *

As the bus roared away, Tsukune surveyed the area.

"Sunflowers. Lots and lots of sunflowers," he muttered, effectively summing up the situation.

"Did humans plant this field? It's beautiful!" Moka said, brushing her hand against one of the flowers.

Kouma looked perfectly uninterested in the local plant life, and crossed his arms over his chest. "All right Captain, what's first?"

Tsukune considered the question, and then glanced over at the shed next to the road.

"Check the shed and make sure it's safe and has room. The girls will sleep in there while we'll camp out here," Tsukune said, pointing to a large bare patch behind the shack, "there's a straw bale, so we can spread it over the ground to pad our sleeping bags better. Chopper, could you do that while I gather stones for a fire pit?"

"Gotcha, Boss."

"Whatever you say, Aono."

Then he turned toward the girls. "Kurumu, Kana, could you two fly a circle around the area for me? I want to know if there any other buildings or roads nearby. Also, keep watch for any cars or people coming our way."

"You got it!" Kurumu said enthusiastically as her wings burst open behind her. Kana gave a subdued nod as her own wings slowly and delicately pushed free of her body.

"Tobaki, Keito, I want you two to go with Kouma and start setting up the shed for you to stay in. Mizore, follow Keito and make sure she doesn't do anything evil."

Keito's eye twitched as Mizore saluted mutely. "I object to this unfair treatment," she drawled.

"And I object to sleeping a few meters away from a giant, man-eating spider. We'll both have to make sacrifices during this trip," Tsukune said sarcastically.

"Hey, that's not right!" Tobaki complained, "Big Sis Keito has never eaten a man before! She prefehgrfg..." The yochlol was silenced as Keito held a hand over mouth and started dragging the dark-skinned girl toward the shed.

"That's enough, Tobaki. Let's not waste our captain's time with needless yammering," Keito grumbled.

Tsukune felt reasonably satisfied as he watched the horrifying schoolgirls retreat to the shed, followed by Mizore. Then he turned to Yukari.

"Yukari, if there are witches here, how do you think they'd respond to us?"

Yukari frowned. "Well, it depends on whether or not they consider this part of their territory or not. If it is, then we can expect a response, though that could be anything from a happy welcome to swarms of wild animals eating us in our sleep. If we're outside of their territory, then they won't bother us since there are so many of us in one place, but they might spy on us with animal familiars just out of curiosity or paranoia."

Tsukune scratched his head as he considered this. "And there's no way to tell where their territory extends to, exactly?"

"Well, it's hard to..." Yukari trailed off as she glanced around, "hey, where did Moka go?"

"YEEEEEEEEEEEK!" a somewhat familiar scream of horror burst from the sunflower grove, and Yukari clicked her tongue.

"Okay, yeah, we're probably in witch country," she admitted.

"MOKA! What's wrong?! Can you hear me?!" Tsukune shouted, unable to see the vampiress from within the tangle of flowers.

"Help! It's got me! The vines!" Moka screamed back, although it didn't help Tsukune in spotting her.

Kurumu, who hadn't gotten very far in her scouting flight, swung around in the air once she heard Moka's scream.

"I've got her!" Extending her nails into razor talons, Kurumu dive-bombed the area where Moka was trying to untie several vines wrapped around her leg.

Kurumu flattened out her glide and then landed next to the vampiress, slashing at the tangle of vines stretched between Moka and a group of trembling sunflowers. She sliced through the offending vegetation with ease and rendered Moka's bonds instantly slack, and then Kurumu grabbed the vampiress around the waist and leapt airborne again.

"What was that about?" Kurumu asked as she flapped her wings hard, having to put forth twice the effort to get altitude with Moka holding on, "it's like the flowers were trying to eat you."

"They WERE trying to eat me!" Moka shouted, her eyes searching the grove below in a panic.

"That's silly," Kurumu scoffed, "how is a sunflower supposed to eat you?"

"FEED ME!"

At hearing a sudden and very questionable demand below her, Kurumu glanced downward to see a massive green mouth attached to a bulky seed pod stretching into the sky at them, its bulbous head supported by a thick central stem that seemed to strain under its weight even as vines wormed upward through the air toward their feet.

"Oh, THAT'S what you meant," Kurumu mumbled, gingerly pulling her foot away as a leafy vine groped awkwardly for it through the air.

"There are more of them!" Moka shouted as Kurumu gained more altitude, bringing both girls safely out of reach of the unusually violent plant.

By this time Moka's plight had attracted everyone else's attention (save Tobaki, who thought nothing of mortal peril and was happily making a pet bed for Guile), and everyone watched curiously as the snapping green jaws tried in vain to grasp its hovering prey.

"How many more are there?" Tsukune asked, noticing that the sunflowers immediately ahead of him were shaking ominously.

"I think maybe half a dozen?" Moka replied as Kurumu flew her over to the shed, landing heavily next to Tsukune.

_Shf! Shf! Shf!_ "Feed..." "... Me..." "Feed me..." "Feed..."

Kouma frowned as he looked at the trembling sunflowers all over the edge of the grove that surrounded the shed. "Or maybe more like a full dozen?"

Chopper snorted, his height allowing him to see several green mounds slowly rising above the veritable ocean of flower blossoms. There were far more than a dozen. "We can do a body count after we're done, can't we?" he asked, pounding a fist into an open palm. "First let's do some weeding."

* * *

"Hello everyone! The students may be on break but so is my union rep, so that means I'm still doing the Monster Encyclopedia segment!" cheered Shizuka Nekonome, though it seemed doubtful that her heart was in it. "Today we'll be talking about the garigari plant!"

She pointed to the blackboard, which had a chalk outline of the carnivorous vegetation along with a great deal of technical detail that was obviously written by someone in a different class.

"The garigari plant is an uncommonly aggressive piece of flora from the deep jungles, where food is abundant and the environment is harsh! In their native territory garigaris are dangerous but largely passive creatures that spend their lives lazily gorging themselves on any animals that wander too close!"

She pointed to a second picture of a garigari plant, this one with its jaws snapping and its vines whipping about.

"Taken out of its native environment and into a drier region with less ample prey, the garigari often goes berserk, aggressively attacking any source of food and moisture to feed itself! All of its biological processes speed up tremendously, from its overpowered metabolism to its photosynthetic processes! Incidentally, this would make them a very effective countermeasure for greenhouse gases, so long as you consider bloodthirsty carnivorous plants less of a problem than global warming."

Shizuka pointed to the part of the drawing the represented its leaves. "Garigari plants can uproot themselves to walk and they secrete toxins from their leaves that relax the body of their prey and induce drowsiness, which is a necessary aid as they aren't exceptional hunters. Although possessing a primitive brain and nervous system, and being FAR faster than all the plants that can't walk, their vines can only exert so much force and their senses are..."

Shizuka trailed off in embarrassment, "Well, I don't really know much about their senses because they use some sort of gas-detection thingy that has way too many syllables, but according to the notes Fran wrote for me, they're only good for up to a few meters, and their crude ability to detect vibrations through the ground, while having a longer range, isn't helpful for pinpointing prey. This means that, while vicious, the garigari is an awkward fighter and can be avoided without too much trouble when necessary."

"Well, that's all! Practice safe gardening, everyone!" Shizuka said, grinning as she waved.

* * *

Not so far away from the battle breaking out, a single figure draped in old woolen robes sat alone inside a small hut, her weathered face turned toward a single window that looked out upon the sea of sunflowers.

_'My lady,'_ called a voice that spoke only to her, _'there are intruders near the grove. Our precious flowers have seized them.'_

The elderly woman's dry lips turned up into a smile. "More fools to feed the soil of Witch's Knoll. How many?"

_'Several, this time. A pair just near the border and another group near the old grounds keeper__ﾒ__s shack.'_

"Interesting. How many in the group?"

_'Six, seven... maybe more. It is difficult to... Wait! My lady, there is a witch among them!'_

The old woman turned her head up to the ceiling. "I see. Then she must be rescued before our pets harm her. We must look out for our own, Ruby."

_'My lady... they're... they're dying.'_

"Then you must hurry," the elderly witch pressed, lowering her gaze, "we cannot allow a fellow witch to suffer for the crimes of the human race!"

_'Er, no, my lady, that's not what I meant,'_ the telepathic message said, seeming rather confused, _'the garigari plants are the ones who are dying.'_

* * *

_Fwoof!_ Kouma, in hellhound form, spit a thin stream of flames into the slowly advancing garigari plants, almost instantly shriveling the stems supporting their bulbous heads and sending the bulk of the plants crashing into the embers and ashes below.

"Kouma, try to keep the fire under control, all right? We don't want to light up the whole grove!" Tsukune called to the giant black hound.

Kouma snorted as vines and leafy growths tried to sneak around his legs and bind him, only for them to dry out and wither away the moment they touched his fur. "Why not? We could kill off all these things at once that way!"

"As a rule, lighting huge swathes of land on fire is BAD!" Tsukune pointed out. "It would probably destroy the shed and that construction site we saw earlier! We don't know if we need to go that far!"

"Okay, fine, whatever you say," Kouma said, his voice a rumbling growl as he stepped forward into another cluster of plants with magma dripping from his jaws.

"F-Feed HYURK!"

"Haw haw! This is awesome!" cheered Chopper, ripping a garigari's jaws apart as he let loose in his massive troll form. Garigaris surrounded the rampaging beast, wrapping vines around whatever they could and biting into the wrestler's flesh, but it barely served to even slow Chopper down. Skin regrew as fast as the splinter-like teeth could tear it, and Chopper ripped through his floral bonds with nothing more than a flex of his muscles.

"Chopper, don't wander too far into the grove! There could be some other threat out there!" Tsukune called.

"No problem, Boss!" Chopper shouted, holding up one arm and smirking at the garigari uselessly gnawing on his forearm. "It's like a salad that tries to eat you first!" he said before he took a big bite out of the garigari's head, causing the plant to shudder briefly before its jaws went slack and it collapsed.

Tsukune had no warnings for Kurumu and Mizore, who had taken to shredding the plants that managed to slither past Chopper and Kouma. The latter had sprouted a series of scythe-like blades from her sleeves in lieu of fingers, and like Kurumu could cut through the clumsy but angry vegetation like so much butter before the plants could even attempt to bite them.

_Shwp! Shwp!_ A pair of cards flew through the air at the few plants that managed to stagger past this brutal front line intact, slicing through their primary stems and sending the heads tumbling to the ground in a useless heap.

"There sure a lot of these things!" Yukari noted, drawing up another card in each hand, "witches don't normally keep THIS MUCH security. I think this might be something else!"

Tsukune and Moka kept back with Yukari, both of them "armed" with gardening tools they had pillaged from the shed. As it stood, however, their help was totally unnecessary; the Protection Committee had already felled dozens of garigaris, and though the seemingly endless numbers of them had Tsukune worried, none of his fighters seemed close to tiring.

Tsukune spared a glance at the open shed door, spotting Keito as she continued helping Tobaki set up sleeping space as if nothing was wrong.

"Well, how many of these things can there be?" Tsukune asked, staring at a nearby severed vine as it squirmed and wriggled like a worm.

"If they happened here naturally, then there couldn't be more than a dozen or so within ambush distance for the kind of food supply in a place like this," Yukari reasoned, letting loose another card and scoring another garigari kill, "but given how many we've killed, and the fact that this is human territory, I'd definitely say that this field was cultured and fed by someone, which mean there could be hundreds within a single square kilometer."

"Hundreds? Not thousands?" Tsukune asked warily.

"They'd require too much food and probably drain the soil to wasteland if there were THAT many," Yukari reassured him as she let loose another card. Thwump!

"I see..." Tsukune said uncertainly as he saw Kana descending toward them out of the corner of his eye. "Hold on a minute."

Kana's great feathered wings fluttered gracefully as she touched down behind Tsukune, making sure to hold her skirt down against the wind currents as she got her footing (in a stark contrast to Kurumu's own flight patterns, Tsukune noticed).

"I saw some humans..." mumbled the siren, leaning in just close enough for Tsukune to make out her raspy voice, "they're in trouble. More plants."

Tsukune grimaced, both at the knowledge that there were innocent people being attacked by the plants, and that he needed to keep these people from seeing the members of the Protection Committee as they were now.

"All right, how far away, and how many?"

Kana pointed down the road, looking rather disinterested. "About... half a kilometer, I guess? There were two humans and one plant... next to a truck. That I could make out, anyway..."

"Okay, then," Tsukune mumbled, hefting the shears in his hands before shouting toward the others, "Kurumu! I'm going to take Moka and Yukari to go help someone! You're in charge here, okay?"

"'Kay! Have fun!" Kurumu chirped, waving with one hand as she dove over a garigari's head, slicing it open with the other.

"Kana, keep airborne and warn them if any other humans approach, okay?" Tsukune asked, getting a curt nod from the siren before she took off again.

"So we're going to fight one on our own?" Moka asked, gripping the hoe she had found behind the shack and glancing at the monstrous plants being annihilated by the others.

"Hopefully it's just one," Tsukune mumbled, "Yukari, stay behind us and only use your magic if things get bad, all right?"

"Sure! I'm right behind you," Yukari said, slipping her heart-topped wand under her cape.

* * *

In the branches above a pickup truck parked by the side of the road, a single crow gazed intently as a pair of young women struggled in a ditch by the side of the road. One had fainted dead away, her body wrapped up in vines and sticky leaves as she was slowly dragged into the undergrowth. The other was desperately trying to pull her out, but having little success while occasionally stopping to tear away the few tendrils that reached her own legs.

"Help! Is anybody out here?! What is this thing?!"

The crow's gaze almost seemed contemptuous as it stared at the scene with none of the typical curiosity or fascination that most of its kind would have watched the conflict. Its gaze was unwavering, hateful, and above all, purposeful.

"Feed... me..." growled a garbled, guttural voice as a dark shape slowly pushed itself from within the clustered sunflowers, digestive juices dripping from thick, waxy lips.

The conscious girl could hardly be more terrified at that point even as she saw something pushing through the flowers, and she braced her legs against the wall of the ditch before grabbing onto her friend's shoulders and pulling with all her might.

"No! Come on! Come on! I can't-"

"There! I found them!"

The girl was startled to hear a new voice, and her foot suddenly slipped in the dirt, loosening her grip. Her friend immediately slipped further into the wall of sunflowers, and her eyes widened as a dark mouth full of needle-like teeth emerged from the leaves, slowly but surely descending on her unconscious partner as it stretched open.

"Feed on THIS!" Moka cried, jumping into the ditch and swinging her hoe like a baseball bat over the girls' heads.

_Thwack!_ The garigari was sent reeling from the blow, and the blade of the hoe lodged fast in the plant's fleshy head, tearing the hoe free of Moka's grip as she stumbled.

The garigari reared up as Tsukune came in behind Moka, lunging his shears at the plant's central stem.

_Sthunk!_ With a single powerful snip, the garigari plant's head collapsed, falling backward into the obscuring sunflowers and vanishing as the severed stem spat gooey sap into the air from its wound.

"Are you all right? Is your friend hurt?" Moka asked, immediately turning toward the stunned but entirely conscious woman.

"I-I'm okay, I think," she said, clearly bewildered at being rescued, "what was that thing?"

"I don't know!" Yukari said loudly as she caught up with Moka, joining the conversation with a voice that sounded very deliberate in its confusion. "You should probably take your friend and flee for the safety of your human home!"

Tsukune fought off a tired sigh as the young woman stared at Yukari.

"I mean, your home! Which is human, obviously, but there's no particular reason to point that out!" Yukari tried to correct, droplets of sweat speckling her brow. "We're all humans here, right? No reason to doubt that!"

The woman continued to stare.

"I just like this hat, okay?" Yukari snapped, grabbing the rim of her witch hat defensively, "don't stereotype me!"

Moka jumped in fright as she heard a shuffling noise behind her, and glanced over to the sunflower grove as she saw several looming dark lumps moving through the foliage, like the dorsal fins of a pack of sharks.

"I think there are more out there!" the vampiress said, wondering if she should risk retrieving her hoe.

"What should we do? They're coming!" the woman said, cringing at the prospect of fighting more of the horrific vegetation.

With a flick of her wrist, Yukari had a magic card in her hand. "Well, shall I do it?" she asked, glancing meaningfully at Tsukune.

"Yeah, no," Tsukune said blandly, surprising the girls at how calmly he seemed to be taking the horde of monstrous flora bearing down on them. "Miss, is that your car?" he asked, pointing to the vehicle parked next to the road.

The young woman nodded rapidly.

"Is there any reason why we can't carry your friend into the seat so you two can drive away?" Tsukune asked.

She shook her head.

* * *

_Vrrrrrrm!_ Tsukune watched the truck drive off down the road, and then turned to snip a vine that was trying to wrap around his ankle.

"They're coming closer!" Moka shouted as she backed past him, watching the gaping mouths of the plants emerge from the wall of foliage. "They're here!"

"Okay. Let's leave," Tsukune said as he started walking back to the shed, his gait easily matching the speed of the vines snaking out of the grove at him.

The girls followed him uncertainly, feeling awkward about casually walking away from the shambling horrors.

"Wow, they're... they're really not very fast, are they?" Moka asked, glancing back at the garigaris. They gave chase as best they could, but just couldn't seem to match their targets' leisurely pace.

"A garigari can walk, but it can't really manage more than 2 or 3 kilometers an hour. It is a plant, in the end," Yukari admitted, "although usually SOME sort of concern is expected, if only for the sake of propriety. You ARE just a human, after all."

"Well, I don't know what we have to be afraid of," Tsukune reasoned as the garigari plants furthest away quickly gave up the chase and slunk back into the flowers, "they're not native to the human world, but they're not really any more dangerous than most other wild animals. You've just got to stay away from them."

"But what are they doing here?" Moka asked, glancing behind her as the rest of the garigari plants gave up the chase and shuffled back into the sunflower grove, "they're not supposed to exist this close to humans!"

"It probably has something to do with why the Headmaster wanted us to come here," Tsukune said, catching sight of a watching crow out of the corner of his eye. He thought it was rather strange that animals weren't avoiding this place entirely since it was full of predatory flora, but figured that if he could escape the vicious vegetation, then a flying animal certainly could.

After a few minutes' walk they had reached the edge of the battlefield around the shed. The sunflower field was ruined in a wide area all around the shed, with the harmless and lovely flowers being alternatively shredded, scorched, and trampled among the numerous garigari remains.

"Kurumu! Is everyone okay?" Tsukune shouted as he caught sight of the succubus.

She was standing in front of Chopper, who was splayed out on the ground. This would have been a cause for concern save that the heavy rise and fall of his chest indicated he was just asleep.

Kurumu immediately abandoned the troll, using her wings to propel herself over to Tsukune and very nearly tackle him to the ground. "Tsukune! We won! Praise me!"

"Okay, okay! Good job, Kurumu," the young human said awkwardly as Moka puffed up her cheeks in a pout.

Kouma approached, still in hellhound form, and Tsukune had to admit it still shook him to hear the mighty black canine speak.

"We killed all the ones that attacked us, so I'm pretty sure the rest are too far away to sense us at all," explained the hellhound, his voice a rumbling growl that blew hot air through everyone's legs, "should we go out and finish them off?"

"No, I don't want to bother them if I can help it," Tsukune said, "we might figure out what they're doing here later, but for now it's enough that everyone is safe. How's Chopper?"

"He ate too many garigaris. Eventually he just fainted, but even when they started chewing on his body they couldn't really hurt him," Kurumu explained as she finally let go of her beloved.

Tsukune looked around at the area around the shed. Mizore was crouched near the entrance to the building, probably regretting that Ranma wasn't around for her to spy on for no reason, while Kana was still flying in lazy circles above the battlefield. He couldn't see Tobaki or Keito, but there were now thick spider webs attached to the frame of the door.

"Okay... Well, it's starting to get late, so why don't we get the camp set up like we were going to do, and then eat supper. We'll take shifts keeping watch for more plants, just in case, but before that, we can discuss why causing massive damage to property is bad if it's not completely necessary."

Kouma grimaced, recognizing that his earlier idea of torching the entire grove probably prompted that. "Isn't that kind of a pointless lesson without Saotome here? None of the rest of us can unleash full-scale natural disasters."

"Ranma gets enough flak for that on his own," Tsukune deadpanned, "now transform back and help me shake Chopper awake. We still have work to do."

"Okay, fine..."

* * *

In a dark place hidden within the choking groves of sunflowers, the elderly woman draped in blankets gazed into a glass sphere that sat upon a small, round table.

The crone nearly shook with rage as she watched the scenes play out: a giant black dog roasting garigaris at will and rending them apart with flaming jaws. A troll tearing the plants like tissue and scarfing down the remains. A succubus and a snow fairy carving the garigari up like they were whirling lawnmower blades. Two more girls, so sure of the plants' eventual destruction that they didn't even stop unpacking.

What enraged her the most, though, was the scene of two foolish girls being rescued from her carnivorous servant by the smallest of the boys and the pink-haired girl.

These were monsters, were they not? She had no idea what a random mish-mash of monsters were doing wandering around Witch's Knoll, but she could only expect them to defend themselves if they were attacked. But why had they rescued humans? Gone out of their way to rescue humans, at that! They'd even maintained those stupid illusions the whole time, to make it seem like they were normal humans themselves!

An echoing creak filled the room as the door opened behind the elderly woman, and she forced herself to calm down. Behind her entered a teenage girl of slim build, with raven black hair tied in two ponytails draped over her shoulders. She was wearing a dress that seemed to be stylistically tattered, and had black fingernail polish along with a heavy eye shadow. In her hand she clenched a wand as long as her forearm that was topped with a crescent holding a prismatic gem.

"Ruby. You're back," the elder witch mumbled as she swept a hand over her crystal ball, banishing the image.

"Yes, Lady Oyakata. I'm... I'm afraid the eastern field is a total loss," Ruby said with a bow, "the garigari plants simply couldn't handle other monsters, and these intruders fought well."

Oyakata the elder witch frowned. "It is not common for so many different creatures to fight together without quarreling themselves. There may be another force at work, here."

"There is more, my lady," Ruby said gingerly, pursing her lips, "one of them is a human, I believe."

The elder's head snapped up. "Human? They travel with a human? Openly?"

"It's most strange, but I definitely heard the young witch Yukari refer to the short boy, Tsukune, as such. It would seem the others are merely disguised as humans," Ruby said distastefully, "what should we do, my lady?"

"We parley," mumbled the old witch, "we have too much to lose if we let the monsters run rampant. But I will not negotiate with a human."

Oyakata walked over to a dusty bookshelf in the corner, selecting a thin tome that was wrapped tightly in overlapping leather belts.

"The usual methods would be... cumbersome, in this case. We will eliminate the human silently, and then appeal to his acquaintances."

Ruby tried to contain a shiver as the elderly witch started undoing the many belts. She had never seen her guardian unbind any of the more dangerous tomes before. Such books were sealed for a reason, either as a reminder that their power should not be used lightly or because the entities contained within could not be allowed to reign free for fear of the carnage and mischief they could unleash.

As soon as the last leather binding fell to the floor, the book began to visibly tremble in Oyakata's hands, trying to force itself open against her grip.

The crone laid the book open on the table, and a dark mist seemed to seep upward from the cloth paper as the ink on the pages rapidly evaporated from the ancient symbols scrawled there.

"Ellunas greshulla, simeenas killethok," Oyakata mumbled as she leant over the tome, "come forth, tainted one, and earn your freedom from this prison. I have a task for you."

The remaining ink on the page was suddenly torn from the paper into the seething black fog, and that cloud compressed itself to roughly the size of a basketball before a single red light flickered into existence on the edge of the hazy sphere facing Oyakata.

"You offer me freedom from your imprisonment, WITCH?" an unearthly voice boomed, speaking with hateful contempt but also bitter resignation.

"Indeed I do," said Oyakata, briefly sweeping her hand over the crystal ball and summoning an image of Tsukune, "this is the human, correct?"

"Yes, my lady," Ruby said, eying the ball of shadows uneasily.

"Kill him," Oyakata said simply, "you may take on your material form for this task, and once completed, you may leave and do what you will."

"That's it? Kill one human?" the being asked, its voice softening, "what's the catch, hag?"

"There are many others with him," Ruby explained, though the flickering red light did not turn to face her, "they are powerful monsters, and they'll probably defend him if you're detected."

"Ha! Is that all? Then let this pact conclude. Finally I'll be free of you vile crones!" snapped the summoned creature.

"Mothiul sheluul forussyal..." Oyakata mumbled, holding her hands toward the black orb as she spoke words from a language forgotten millennia ago.

The orb suddenly screeched horrendously, and Ruby flinched backward as the sphere suddenly lost its curious freedom from gravity, landing onto the book before bouncing off onto the floor while trailing inky smoke.

The sphere seemed to writhe painfully for a moment, and then it stood up, its boundaries stretching, inflating, and compressing as necessary to form a complete body. Four legs ending in short, sharp claws formed on the bottom, a lithe head full of needle-like teeth and with triangular ears sitting atop the skull pushed free near the top, and the "rear" of the orb stretched out into a long tail as short black fur sprouted all over the creature.

Within seconds, the feline assassin was on its feet and padding out the door, black fog still seeping from the tip of its tail.

"Good luck," Lady Oyakata said with a sneer as the empty book clapped shut like a bear trap.

* * *

"Ah, the human world," Jadeite said to himself as he gazed upon Tokyo, his hands clasped behind his back, "millions of little people, going about their bland, pointless lives in ignorance of the universe around them. Like ants, really."

He was standing at the edge of the roof of a massive skyscraper, with Richard and Ranma behind him paying absolutely no attention to the pontificating lunatic.

"But tonight, their sad little world will be shaken. Tonight we tear down their gods and destroy their hope," the dark general said, grinning at the lines of cars slowly crawling along below.

"Yeah, sure. Can we get something to eat first?" Ranma asked, slapping his stomach, "I do my best god-tearing on a full stomach."

Jadeite glowered at his companions, neither of which showed much interest in what he thought of the pedestrians. "Very well. But we must lay low until nightfall. Devil hunters tend to dislike operating in the daytime."

"OR," said Richard, pulling out a pair of sunglasses, "we could make FULL use of this opportunity and go party with the meatbags."

Ranma quirked an eyebrow. "Is 'party' some kind of dumb ancient word for 'murder'?"

"Well, it depends on the kind of party obviously, but generally no," Richard said, wagging a finger at his companions, "I can slaughter innocent people any old time. And I will! But for now I'm on vacation! Let's cut loose and abuse our considerable powers for petty and reckless diversion!"

With that unnecessarily bold declaration he slipped the sunglasses on.

Instantly a heavy guitar riff suddenly sounded, and Ranma and Jadeite blinked in surprise as rock music started filling the air.

"Wait, where is that coming from?" Ranma asked, scratching his head as he stared at the warlock.

"Summon theme music," Richard explained simply, "most magi think it a waste of a third-level spell slot, but most magi are WRONG."

Jadeite grit his teeth. "Professor Richard, we have a very specific mission to-"

"Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. You didn't seriously think this trip was all about YOU, did you?"

"Frivolous use of magic is only going to complicate our mission!" Jadeite snapped.

"Pf! You call this frivolous? I'll show you frivolous!" Richard said, his hands glowing with arcane power. "Summon Greater Montage!"

Jadeite deflated as the background music started spouting lyrics. "Oh, for the love of Metallia..."

Ranma frowned, "No, I think that's AC/DC," he said as everything started to fade.

* * *

_Back in black! I hit the sack! I've been too long, I'm glad to be back!_

Ranma was seated in front a booth on the beach, in girl form and wearing a tank top rather than her normal shirt. She was also devouring slices of watermelon at an astounding rate along with several other contestants as a crowd of beach goers cheered.

_Yes I'm, let'n loose! From the noose! That's kept me hangin' around!_

After tossing another rind behind her, she grabbed another slice and was about to bite into it when the crowd's cheers suddenly turned to screams.

Glancing to the side, she saw Richard standing over a fiery Hell pit of snarling teeth and lashing tongues as he used a shovel to pile watermelon into it.

Jadeite fumed silently to himself as he stood next to a pile of watermelon rinds buzzing with flies.

* * *

_I keep lookin' at the sky 'cause it's gettin' me high! Forget the herse 'cause I'll never die!_

Richard skated through a large ice rink, did a sudden one-eighty turn and then continued to the edge of the rink, skating backward.

Ranma skated across after him, jumping during his run and doing a complete spin before landing perfectly and then following Richard across.

_I got, NINE LIVES! CAT'S EYES! Usin' every one of them and runnin' wild!_

Jadeite soon followed Ranma uneasily, and then tripped onto his face half-way, sliding across the ice as he had evidently forgotten he could fly.

All the while numerous confused citizens watched from the sidelines in their bathing suits, wondering how the public pool had gotten iced over.

* * *

_'Cause I'm back!  
Yes, I'm back!  
Well, I'm back!  
Yes, I'm back!  
Well, I'm back! Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey! Ey-ey-ey-ey!  
Well, I'm back in black! Yes, I'm BACK IN BLACK!_

Richard, Ranma, and a severely disheveled Jadeite all looked over the railing of a double-decker tour bus, taking in the sights as the tour guide desperately tried to shout over the omnipresent background music.

* * *

_Back in the back of a Cadillac, number one with a bullet, I'm a power pack!_

Several men on motorcycles sped down the highway, all of them bearing tattoos and wearing sunglasses that stereotypically identified them as Yakuza.

Ranma, who was steering a motorcycle while Richard sat behind him, weaved back and forth through traffic after the Yakuza. Jadeite sat in the motorcycle's sidecar, sulking.

_Yes, I'm... in a bang! With a gang! They've gotta catch me if they want me to hang!_

Several of the mafiosos drew sub-machine guns and started spraying fire behind them, causing cars to start swerving and braking in a panic.

Ranma steered behind a car next to him, and the car started braking as a dozen bullets impacted its windshield. Ranma then bounced the front tire of the motorcycle up, ramping up the back of the car and into the air.

Richard pointed at the motorcycles ahead like he was holding guns, and then shouted "Bang, bang!" over and over as he blasted each of the motorcycles with a volley of magic missiles, causing every one of them to explode.

* * *

_'Cause I'm back on the track and I'm leadin' the pack! Nobody's gonna get me on another rap!_

Richard and Ranma sat in a roller coaster car as it slowly climbed up to the high point on the track, and then they threw their arms up as it descended, the car racing up and down the various curves and dips.

Richard suddenly thrust his hand forward as it glittered with ethereal light, and a comet materialized in the skies above and rocketed down toward the tracks, screaming flames as it headed for a high segment ahead of the car.

_So look at me now, I'm just makin' my play. Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way!_

Ranma slipped out of the harness and stood on top of the car, his body glowing a bright blue before he unleashed an orb of shimmering blue energy at the meteor, causing both projectiles to obliterate themselves just before the coaster sped past the threatened length of track.

Below the roller coaster, Jadeite fumed as he held an armful of drinks and snacks, wondering where his companions were.

* * *

_'Cause I'm back!  
Yes, I'm back!  
Well, I'm back!  
Yes, I'm back!  
Well, I'm back! Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey! Ey-ey-ey-ey!  
Well, I'm back in black! Yes, I'm BACK IN BLACK!_

Back on the tour bus, everybody in the top section, led by Ranma and Richard, stood up and rocked back and forth with the music, tilting the entire vehicle as the tour guide silently sulked with Jadeite at the front.

* * *

_Well, I'm back!  
Yes, I'm SKREEEEEEEEEK!_

Ranma grimaced as he stood in front of a rather short, female police officer wearing blue body armor and carrying a rifle on her back as she wrote furiously on a clip board.

Behind him stood a massive wall of ice that was currently obstructing traffic to barricade off the intersection walkway - such that Richard didn't have to wait for the light to change - but had only partially obstructed the police cruiser that had smashed half-way through the ice wall and was now a smoking wreck.

"Look kid, it doesn't matter if you're a minor. If you're going to walk around town with your warlock, you have to keep him under control at ALL TIMES and make sure he obeys all basic traffic laws and at least MOST of Newton's physical laws," lectured the blue-haired woman, glaring up at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma smiled nervously, pointing over to where Richard was on the ground being kicked repeatedly by a pair of male police officers. "No, no! He's not MY warlock!"

The policewoman quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? Then who's is he?"

"Well, he's... his own, I guess?" Ranma suggested, shrugging helplessly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you have any idea how dangerous a warlock is on his own without a generally sane 'leader' character to keep him in line?"

Ranma couldn't stop himself from wincing. "Yes," he admitted, wilting completely.

Her gaze softened. "Well, Snake said he's registered, so this should go quickly. I'll let you off with a warning this time, but letting him run wild can cost LIVES, you understand?"

Ranma nodded quickly, quite grateful he was being let off. "Yes, Ma'am! Thank you, Ma'am!"

"Captain!" shouted one of the two male officers, who looked like some sort of foreigner with a drum-feed automatic shotgun hung over one shoulder, "finished running his I.D. Took a bit longer because I was busy kicking him."

"Hey! How much longer should I keep this up?" shouted the final officer, a man with long blond hair who was still kicking and trampling the undead magi relentlessly.

"Until his lungs are crushed too badly for him to make cop jokes!" the foreigner shouted back.

"Oh, come on! Oof!" Richard complained as the blond officer tried to crush his ribcage underfoot, "I only have two - guh! - or three more - hurk! - how many cops does it - grhg! - take to screw in a - huhk! - lightbulb? Just - hmp! - one, but he's never - kuh! - there when you need him!"

"Is this normal for you guys?" Ranma asked, scratching the back of his head. He wasn't exactly familiar with police tactics, as Nerima was a well-recognized "law-free" zone where the rules concerning assault and destruction of property did not apply, but this was WAY different than what he saw from cop movies.

"Eh, usually we do a lot more shooting and less beatings," the lady officer admitted as she took a look at the tablet screen her male cohort was holding.

Her eyes hardened instantly. "Richard? Are you serious?"

Ranma started to sweat. "Uh, are you sure you have the right Richard? Pretty common name, right? This one is 'Emperor of the Black', and, uh, I think the other one was 'Lord of the Bones'. Is yours one of those?"

"Around here he's known as the '652 Natal Ward Buffet Butcher'," the bluette deadpanned as Ranma's face darkened.

"In my defense, those doctors' directions to the ACTUAL cafeteria were all wrong!" Richard said before the blond man landed a particularly crushing blow to his sternum.

_CRACK!_ "THERE we go. Snake, I think I got it!"

Ranma gulped. "So, uh... that crime doesn't reflect on me too, does it?"

"Why don't we have a long discussion about that downtown?" the police captain asked dangerously, holding up a pair of handcuffs, "we should hurry, since it's a long walk and our car is still stuck."

The pigtailed boy grimaced, watching as Richard was folded up into a sack and slung over the blond officer's shoulder like a bag of garbage. "Man, this is easily the third worst montage I've ever been through," he complained as he was cuffed.

"Try Red Hot Chili Peppers or Aerosmith next time," the foreign officer apparently named Snake suggested. "Let's move!"

* * *

Next to the grounds keeper's shack on Witch's Knoll, a large section of the field had been cleared of sunflowers and garigari remains and was made to serve as a classroom, as the shack was too small to house all the members of the Protection Committee at once.

Most of the students ate their dinner while Tsukune lectured, save Chopper who had already stuffed himself on the plants that had been trying to eat him.

"In addition to basic things like a right to live and generally be free of injury, people also have a right to property," Tsukune explained, "Kouma, you don't steal things from people, right?"

"No, of course not," the hellhound confirmed, sounding mildly offended.

"So you respect that if someone owns something, then you don't have a right to it without their permission?" Tsukune asked.

"Maybe if I beat 'em down first, but basically, yeah, that's right."

"That's... good! Mostly. Anyway, the connection I want you to make here is that if stealing other people's things when it isn't necessary is wrong, then destroying them is also wrong. To the owner, his property is gone either way, so it doesn't matter all that much whether you benefited," Tsukune explained.

Keito sighed wearily, not bothering to hide her contempt for the lecture. "I can't believe we have to sit here and listen to this tripe. He acts like he's teaching children," she hissed under her breath.

Her indignity was undermined somewhat by the fact that Tobaki looked intensely interested, and was taking detailed notes on Tsukune's lesson.

"You're thinking of this the wrong way, Big Sis," Tobaki whispered back, "these lessons are coming from a human. A real human! This is special insight into how they think and react to monsterkind; this could be more valuable toward our academic goal of fitting in with the human world than ALL of the classes taught by largely incompetent sociopaths combined!"

Keito clicked her tongue. "Not all of us take to the curriculum with such enthusiasm, Tobaki. I for one don't care for the idea of meekly following human rules for the rest of my life."

"Well, at least you can learn enough about right and wrong to operate properly in your capacity in the Protection Committee, right?"

"I DO know right from wrong," sniffed Keito, "I just don't care."

"Keito!" Tsukune said suddenly, having noticed that the spider woman was having her own conversation (though he couldn't make out what she had been saying) , "here's the scenario: You come upon several items that you recognize as stolen, and a student who claims they belong to him. What do you do?"

Keito straightened immediately. "I note the identity of the supposed owner and then verify that the items are indeed the ones that were presumably reported as missing, either by a detailed description or by having the reporting student identify them. After resolving any dispute in ownership, I secure the thief for imprisonment until such time that his final punishment can be determined."

By the time she finished, everyone was staring at Keito, surprised if not shocked by how orderly, detailed, and non-violent her procedure was.

Chopper scratched his head. "How did you get all that from 'don't burn stuff'?"

"Experience and subtext," Keito said with a shrug, "I just thought of what kind of result our good captain would want and how to best achieve that with as little bloodshed and room for error as possible."

Tsukune's eyebrow twitched. 'It sure would be nice to have her on if she wasn't trying to kill me.' Keito was fully grounded and actually quite intelligent, but he was well aware that she still resented him for stripping her of her former rank and privilege. She probably always would.

"Good answer, Keito. And what do you do if the alleged thief resists?"

"Immobilize him if I can," Keito said immediately, "if not, retreat to find you or Kurono and return with the compliance squad."

"Another good answer," Tsukune admitted, "and when do you dissolve and eat the thief's innards?"

"Only AFTER he has been released from custody and is no longer the center of attention," Keito answered before she realized what she had said, "I mean, never!"

"Nice save," Kurumu snickered while Yukari and Kana giggled next to her.

"Wait, I'm confused," Tobaki said, raising her hand, "is there a better time to slaughter and devour the guilty?"

"It was a trick question," Tsukune explained, slightly exasperated by Tobaki's horrifying ignorance, "because the punishments for serious or repeated offenses is left to the administrators, we're never going to be executing students, as far as I know. So we won't need to kill them, and so we certainly won't be eating them."

"What if you could eat them WITHOUT killing them?" Chopper asked, "or, like, you kill them because you had to, or maybe they're even dead before you get there, and you happen to have soy sauce with you. What's the call then?"

Tsukune forced himself to rationalize the question in his mind. "It's... best if you don't eat any students, ever," he said with a slightly disturbed expression, "because the body might need to be identified later, and the relatives of the victim might want it unmolested. Also Miss Madaraki has a very specific procedure to go through when confirming the death of a student, so it's helpful to have a complete body."

"So instead of getting eaten, they get dissected and used for parts. That's much better," Kouma quipped.

"What's wrong with that? Better they're used for science than lunch," Yukari responded.

Despite the bizarre discussions, Tsukune couldn't help but feel a significant measure of pride as the members of the committee started earnestly talking about the disposal of bodies in Youkai Academy and what they would best be used for. It wasn't exactly harmonious and definitely morbid, but it was still a huge step forward.

Of course he could have just listed series of rules and demanded obedience because he was in charge and had a strong friend to back him up, but besides being more dangerous it somehow seemed perverse for a human to lay down rules without explanation and expect monsters to obey them. Wasn't the whole point of him being at Youkai Academy to impart the values of humanity upon the other students? And how could he do that if there was no understanding?

Feeling pleased with himself, Tsukune suddenly held up his hands. "All right, everyone settle down. Next I want to discuss sexual assault and how we should identify and approach it."

"Ooh! I have lots of experience with this subject!" Tobaki said excitedly, startling most of the other students and causing them to cringe.

Tsukune, once again failing to dissociate the image of a cute, innocent-looking elven girl from the terrifying demon that she was, did not pick up on her meaning. "So you've seen a lot of this around Youkai Academy while you were in the Protection Committee?" Tsukune said, clearly concerned about the prospect.

"Oh, I see it all the time," Tobaki answered, looking somewhat proud that she got to contribute to the discussion, "my abyssal friends like to hit up the boy's locker room after school and force themselves on some of the guys from the sports teams. I usually just watch and make sure he survives, but occasionally I indulge myself too," she said with a bashful flush over her cheeks.

As the Keito massaged her forehead and Tsukune gaped wordlessly, Kurumu sighed. "And here we go again. Crazy demons."

Tobaki raised an eyebrow at her. "What? I'm sure nothing I've done could impress a succubus. Your species embodies deviant and illicit sex."

"H-Hey! Don't slander my species like that!" Kurumu shouted, her cheeks burning as she jumped to her feet.

"It's not slander," Yukari said, incredulous that Kurumu would even try to deny it, "even putting aside your racial reputation, your physiology and powers are specially suited to attracting and and immediately subduing humanoid men."

"Well, not all of us are like that!" Kurumu protested.

"Didn't you spend the first few days hypnotizing and flirting with the entire male half of the freshman class?" Keito pointed out.

Kurumu struggled for something to say before she gave up and pointed at Tobaki. "Why are you all getting on MY case? Tobaki is a serial rapist!"

"Well, yes, but I'm making an effort to put my duty before my appetites," Tobaki said, nodding as if her admission resolved everything, "but seriously, you've never forced yourself on a man?"

"No! Why would I even have to?" Kurumu demanded, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Well, maybe your guy is hung up on someone else," mused Mizore in a bored monotone, pointing to the grounds keeper's shack.

"Tsukune, are you all right?" Moka asked as she approached Tsukune from behind. He was currently leaning against the wall of the shack, hanging his head.

"Yeah... I'm fine," Tsukune said wearily, "really, it's my fault. Nothing Tobaki says should faze me by now. This sort of thing IS why we're here, after all."

As he started to turn around, his eye happened to catch one of the heads of the garigaris that had been shoved next to the building and was laying next to his feet. "Well, that and the thinly veiled plotting of a creepy administrator," he grumbled, giving the dismembered head a spiteful kick.

"It's going to be fine, Tsukune. You're doing great!" Moka affirmed, squeezing the human boy's shoulders as her expression turned serious. "Nobody else thought to teach everyone the reasoning behind human laws so that they could make the correct decisions on their own! You're doing the best you can, and everyone here knows it!"

"Moka..." Tsukune felt a great sense of relief as he turned around to see the vampiress's flawless, smiling face, and soon he was smiling too. "Thanks, Moka. I just-"

"Hey, should we leave you two alone, or do you have more to say, here?" Kouma asked as Kurumu fumed silently behind him, grinding her teeth.

Tsukune almost jumped around, and then quickly stepped back to his previous place. "Thank you, Kouma, we're not done here just yet," he said through a forced smile, "now, as I was saying: let's discuss how sexual assault is wrong and we always need to put a stop to it."

"Awww! Lame!" Tobaki complained as Keito patted her head sympathetically.

* * *

"So, what have we learned today as part of our trip to the human world?" Jadeite asked as he stepped out of the police station via its rear entrance. Although the question itself was the sort that a teacher would legitimately ask his students, the way Jadeite grit his teeth and glowered the whole time suggested he didn't really care.

Ranma scratched the back of his head. "I learned what it means to be an 'accessory' to something," he said, "I never knew it was illegal just being with someone else who was committing a crime without stopping him."

Richard stepped out behind the martial artist. "I learned that if you try melting a vault door open from the inside, the convection will cook you before you get halfway through it." His normally bone-white skin was deeply browned, and Richard looked even more withered than usual. "You'd think I'd have known that, being a physical science teacher, but no."

Jadeite stopped on the sidewalk and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. "And do you two have anything else to say to me?"

"Thank you for posting bail, Professor Jadeite," Ranma and Richard said reluctantly.

"Actually, he didn't," corrected the foreign policeman the others had referred to as Snake as he followed them out of the building, "you see, bail is a deposit given over to the court to ensure your presence at trial. It is set by a judge and returned upon the start of the trial."

"Okay..." Ranma scratched his head, unsure where the American was going with this.

Snake continued. "As there is no formal law entitling the undead to due process, Mister Richard-"

"PROFESSOR Richard. I didn't spend three decades in Evil Wizard school to be called 'Mister', thank you very much," the warlock snapped.

Snake glanced at him briefly. "This hunk of wasted flesh over here doesn't actually get a trial, and you don't get your money back."

Ranma considered that as Jadeite sputtered angrily over this revelation. "Wait, that means that what he just paid you was-"

"A straight-up bribe, yes," the foreigner confirmed, "toodles!"

He promptly shut the door, leaving the three alone once again.

"And now I've learned something ELSE new about the human world," Richard said, looking pleased, "isn't this educational? It's a pity we don't have more students to share our new insights into the human criminal justice system and its relationship with non-humans!"

"While there actually ARE some questions I'd like to ask this 'Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment', that is not our mission here," Jadeite said through clenched teeth, "and as it finally nightfall, we should be getting TO that mission, don't you think?"

"Yes, yes, very well," Richard said as he started walking down the street, "Saotome, are you prepared to thwart our dastardly plans?"

"Got you covered, Freak," Ranma said, looking rather morose as he gave them a sarcastic thumbs-up.

Jadeite grimaced, his hands clenching into fists. "Professor, would it not be best to eliminate the obstacle before we begin? I warned you that Saotome would try to stop us."

Ranma, as usual dismissive of an open threat to his life, simply stuck his tongue out at Jadeite as the dark general glared at him.

"Oh, don't be such a whiner," Richard scoffed, "we're in devil hunter territory now, right? Well then, let's get this show on the road!"

_FWOOSH!_ Richard's hands exploded into twin fireballs, pulsing with energy as he aimed his palms at the tallest nearby building he could see.

_WHAM!_ His casting was promptly shut down as Ranma hammered him in the back of his head with a street sign, smashing him into the sidewalk and causing the flames to sputter out.

The warlock remained face-down for a few seconds, then pulled his head up, glancing at Ranma in annoyance. "You know, I'm trying to meet you half-way with this 'not killing you before the battle' thing. You could at least let me SUMMON the devil hunters we're here for."

"That's not it," Ranma deadpanned, jabbing his thumb behind him at the police station immediately behind them, "I'd just rather not get arrested twice in one night. I don't think Proff Jadeite has any more 'bail' money."

The two villains glanced silently at the police station.

"Good call," Richard said, standing up suddenly, "I usually like to be more discriminating in my targets, anyway. Let's go find an orphanage! Or a petting zoo! Ooh! Or a petting zoo being visited by an orphanage!"

"You're not going to find one of those open NOW," Jadeite snapped as he started walking down the street, "how about a gambling den? They're nice and packed, and often have poor fire suppression facilities."

"Bleh. Not sympathetic enough. Isn't there any place open that houses innocent, doe-eyed, wonderfully flammable children?" Richard asked, following him.

"Do teenagers count?"

"I'm sorry, do you not understand the word 'sympathetic'?"

Ranma trudged after the pair of lunatics, grumbling to himself. "I went too easy on the Headmaster. WAY too easy."

* * *

As the night wore on, the partially ravaged fields of Witch's Knoll fell silent. The garigari plants that had not been destroyed, as they weren't close enough to the grounds keeper's shack, went into hibernation, their swollen heads resting on the ground and wrapping themselves in leaves as the darkness deprived them of energy to hunt.

As the fields finally became safe for travel, the nocturnal animals around the knoll finally emerged from hiding, most of them blissfully unaware that they were crawling within a slumbering death trap.

One such beast, however, was under no such illusions.

"Wretched witches. They've turned this place into a nesting ground for their beasts," mumbled a black cat as it padded through the sunflower fields.

Or at least, most creatures would have mistaken them for mere sunflowers. The feline assassin knew better, and its softly glowing yellow eyes could sense the trace magical energies and subtle malevolence seeping through every stem.

The sunflowers themselves were alive, waiting. Sleeping. Hungering.

The shadow beast felt uneasy walking through the dangerous field, but it was the only approach that offered enough cover to properly stalk its victim. This beast knew that many monsters possessed flawless night vision (as it did), and had a variety of other sharpened senses. It would probably get only one chance to attack.

As it crept through the vegetation, its mouth split open slightly, revealing razor-sharp fangs that released a dark, acrid mist that was invisible in the dead of night, but caused nearby leaves to wither from its virulence.

One chance would be all it needed.

'Just a little further,' the feline thought, its steps absolutely silent as it approached the shack. It could see signs of combat here: sunflower stalks snapped in half, and scorched vegetation littering the ground. It pressed forward, its soft feet making not a sound even as it stepped on the dried, burnt leaves that littered the ground.

In the end, however, its skill at stealth did not help it evade simple traps.

The feline saw the ultra-fine threads come into focus at the last second, as its face unwittingly plunged into the webbing rendered almost invisible in the darkness, even to its eyes. The assassin recoiled immediately, dragging the web back with it as the sticky threads clung to its fur and whiskers.

'Oh, for the love of tuna...' the feline grumbled in its head as his claws emerged to cut away the trap. There were other ways that a shadow beast could have dealt with the minor indignity of getting its face trapped in spider webbing, but it didn't want to risk being detected.

'This is actually pretty tough stuff,' the feline thought as it carefully scratched at its face, drawing the threads out of its fur, 'how big was the spider that made this thing?'

It received its answer as said spider suddenly tackled it to the ground.

"JESUS BAST PHAROAH DEMOGORGON SATAN BAHAMUT **HELP**!" the shadow cat screamed, all concern for stealth lost as huge, hardened legs as long as its tail wrapped around it. The spider was massive, easily as big as the cat itself, and was evidently just as stealthy. Inch-long fangs stabbed into the assassin's back and poured venom into it, though non-magical poison was luckily harmless to the feline. Much more of a concern was being subdued and bound by a spider the size of a cat mere meters from its target.

Steeling itself, the cat's eyes went from spooky yellow to furious red, and the ends of its extremities started to evaporate into the air, filling the immediate space with hissing gases that sizzled as they brushed against the arachnid terror.

It didn't respond immediately, pinning the feline down to begin wrapping it while the corrosive gas blew over its hardened carapace, but as a wisp of the dark fumes touched its face, the spider immediately recoiled, jumping forward and scuttling away to try and escape this unexpected defense.

The assassin clenched its teeth against the wound in its back, which was extremely painful even without suffering from the poisons, and quickly rolled to its feet. Despite feeling several strands of webbing clinging to it still, the feline dashed away to the side, giving little thought to hiding its movements anymore.

'All right, all right, this isn't totally a wash,' the assassin thought grimly, 'I'm pretty sure someone heard me scream, but I'm still a cat. I might be able to pull off a sneak attack still.'

It stopped running after a few seconds, feeling that he had probably gotten away from the monstrous spider. Such predators rarely chased their prey very far from their webs.

Or, at least, that was the manner of ordinary spiders. But that thing had been far from ordinary.

'What was that thing doing here? Is it one of the witch's beasts? Or maybe one of the human's guards?' the deadly feline thought as he once again started to approach the shack. 'Whatever. Hopefully there are no more giant spiders out here.'

A light shuffling noise was all the warning that the assassin cat got before Keito stepped out from the wall of sunflowers behind it.

"Hmmm..." Keito said nothing as she stared down at the black cat that was just barely visible in the darkness, its glowing yellow eyes staring up at her as its body tensed for flight.

A much louder shuffling noise heralded the approach of Haruo, who was in gargoyle form and thus couldn't take a step without his wings brushing over a dozen flowers.

"Oh, it's just a cat," the gargoyle said, only to freeze up as Keito whirled on him.

"Idiot!" she hissed, "why did you follow me! If someone sees you, we're done for!"

Haruo winced and started to slink back.

"No, stop! I can feel that no one is approaching now, so stop making such a racket!"

The shadow cat bolted the moment their attention was off of it, knowing that the only way for it to complete its mission now was to make a bee-line for its target and attack immediately, before anyone knew what was going on.

'It's this or being trapped in that damn book for the rest of time, I'll take my chance-hwuh?'

Its thoughts were interrupted as it felt something wet and sticky strike its back without much force.

And then, suddenly, it was pulled clean off its feet and into the air.

Keito snorted as she tugged sharply on the webbing stretched between the cat and her arm where the other end was wrapped around her wrist.

She snatched her catch out of the air, holding it by its midsection as it started to yowl and struggle.

Then her mandibles emerged from the corners of her mouth, and she plunged her fangs into the clearly shocked and terrified creature.

Haruo winced as he watched Keito feed on the hapless cat. Not that he was squeamish about killing animals, but the way the feline twitched and writhed as the enchanted poisons filled its body was especially gruesome.

"Is this really necessary?" Haruo grumbled.

Keito drew her fangs out of her new meal, casting her co-conspirator a withering glance.

"Maybe. These sorts of creatures are commonly used as familiars by witches. And whether it belongs to Sendo or the residents of the knoll, I'd rather not have either of them interfering."

As the feline gave another, final jolt, Keito once again plunged her fangs into its body, and a quiet (though still sickening) slurping sound came from the spider woman as she fed.

"Whatever. You understand what's going on, right? Everything will be ready in two days. When you see the signal, get Tobaki and go," Haruo directed.

"Very well. I'll probably only be able to delay her for so long, though, so don't dally," Keito mumbled through her mouth even as the cat withered and shrunk to a furry husk.

Then, the body seemed to suddenly collapse, disintegrating into a dark fog that caused Keito to jerk backward in surprise.

"Blech. I knew it. A magic beast," the spider woman spat as her fangs slowly folded back into her cheeks, "Probably some sort of spy. Blasted witches."

"Well, it won't be getting in our way anymore," Haruo said, looking rather smug despite the fact that he hadn't contributed at all to its demise, "I'll be leaving, now."

"Hurry up before someone comes," Keito hissed as the gargoyle jumped up and flapped its wings, rustling the sunflowers as he finally departed.

"Lumbering moron couldn't stalk a sleeping man in the dead of night in a garden of gargoyle statues," Keito grumbled as she started heading back to the camp, her own body moving all but silently through the thick foliage.

She had almost made it to the edge of the sunflower field (or rather, where the edge was after the Protection Committee was done fighting) when she detected two people approaching from the camp, their footsteps reverberating through the ground more clearly than the sounds bouncing about above it.

She froze, gathering her wits as Kouma and Kurumu pushed their way through the sunflowers, neither of them looking pleased to have found her.

"Keito? What are you doing out here?" Kouma demanded, a lit cigarette leaking smoke as his blazing red eyes scanned the surroundings, "I was on watch when I heard some shouting out here."

Keito raised an eyebrow. "Then why is Kurono here? Did you hear it within the shed?"

"I was trying to sneak into Tsukune's sleeping bag at the time," Kurumu said bitterly, crossing her arms under her breasts, "and now it's ruined! So what are you up to?"

Keito gestured vaguely in the direction of the sunflower field behind her. "It was a magical beast, doubtless some familiar sent by the witches here to spy on us. I dealt with it appropriately." Of course, she had no idea what the feline had been doing, and suspected it belonged to Yukari, but she wasn't going to give up a perfectly good excuse.

"And what were you doing here in the first place?" Kouma asked, plucking the cigarette from his lips and blasting a smoke cloud out of the corner of his mouth.

Keito stared at the pair for several seconds before she finally said, "Our shed lacks restrooms."

Kurumu's expression of annoyance dropped instantly. "OH. Uh... I see."

"The familiar surprised me, so I killed it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd best get back to my web," the spider woman brushed past Kouma and Kurumu, not giving them so much as a backward glance.

Kouma took another long puff on his cigarette. "She's lying," he mumbled, suddenly tilting his head back and swallowing his smoke.

Kurumu looked startled, wondering why Kouma hadn't moved after Keito left. "What? About which part?"

"Why she came out here. She probably did kill something, since I could smell the blood and venom, but she didn't come out here to piss."

Kurumu recoiled. "You CHECKED for that?"

The hellhound gave her annoyed look. "I didn't CHECK for it, but I would have been able to tell immediately."

"Really?" Kurumu asked, looking a bit squeamish, "wow, having such good senses kind of sucks sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... Excrement doesn't really bother me after living in Hell for a while," Kouma admitted, "there are worse smells."

Deciding not to press any further on that subject, Kurumu rubbed her chin. "So, why was she out here?"

"Dunno. She's a spider, they skulk around all the time. She was probably just looking for a snack or something."

Kouma took a few sniffs of the air to make sure he wasn't missing anything, and then turned around. "Well, whatever. Not like she's not allowed to be out and about."

"Maybe that's true, but Keito is a special case," Kurumu mumbled bitterly, "I'm going to ask Mizore to keep tabs on her. I have a bad feeling about this..."

The two of them started walking back to the camp where the rest of the Protection Committee slumbered.

"Kouma," Kurumu said seriously, glancing over to the hellhound, "I'm worried about Tsukune. I'll take the next watch after all."

Kouma rolled his eyes. "Sure you will."

Kurumu glared at him. "I'm serious! Chopper's up next, right? Between Keito possibly plotting something and the witches sending animals to spy on us, I need to personally keep a close-"

"You can slip into his sleeping bag," Kouma interrupted, "seriously, I don't care. Just keep the noise down." "Thank you!" Kurumu said, immediately bolting for the camp.

* * *

End Chapter 14

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

(About half an hour earlier)

"This is so exciting! It's like a slumber party!" Tobaki chirped as she hugged a pillow to her chest, her eyes gleaming.

The other girls all more or less ignored her as they undressed in preparation to put on their pajamas.

Kurumu, however, stopped after she stripped off her top, and then stepped over to Mizore and Kana.

"Hey, you two have been getting along a lot better recently, haven't you? Did anything happen?"

Mizore hesitated as her skirt dropped to her feet. "There just isn't much point if Ranma's not even here..." she admitted. Kana nodded mutely in agreement.

"I don't see how there's a point even when he IS here," Moka said as she pulled down a pink pajama top over her head, "he's already engaged, right? If you two want boyfriends, there are plenty of guys on campus I'm sure are just as good as he is!"

A trio of derisive snorts greeted that opinion, with the third issuing from Tobaki.

"You have pretty questionable taste in men, but you do have a point about Ranma," the yochlol mused, sighing and laying back on a stretch of foul yellow webbing that covered the corner of the shed, "that's why he rejected me, so it doesn't make sense to keep going after him, right? At least, not now that we've got this restriction against sexual assault hanging over our heads."

Most of the other girls sweatdropped as Keito sidled up next to Tobaki and ran her fingers through the yochlol's hair. "He doesn't deserve you, Tobaki. You'd be wasted on someone like him."

Kurumu, who still hadn't put on a top (to the girls' increasing annoyance) suddenly chuckled. "What's with that weak resolve? You're seriously giving up that easily?"

She smirked as she planted her hands on her hips. "If any of you talked to Ranma as much as I do, you'd know that he's not exactly head-over-heels for his fiancee. The arrangements were forced on him, and he hardly cares about any of them!"

Moka grimaced, not liking the expression of surprise and intrigue on Kana and Mizore's faces (at least, she thought she saw some of that in the way Mizore quirked her eyebrows slightly). "Kurumu, how could you possibly know that?"

"And are you almost done showing off how your boobs are bigger than ours?" Yukari grumbled.

Kurumu wagged a finger at Moka. "Oh, you know, little things. Like the fact that he prefers not to talk about them, ever, and when he does he complains, yet he'll never deny being engaged in the first place. And the fact that he has a picture of his parents in his wallet, but none of any of his fiancees. Or the fact that he's still chaste after being engaged for over a year."

Then, as the other girls were either blushing or gasping in surprise, Kurumu turned toward Yukari. "Also, no."

"Hey, why do YOU know so much about him?" Kana's voice rang, the melodic tone containing a definite note of dangerous envy now that she was provoked enough to speak.

"Because I actually talk to him instead of just meekly following him around all the time," Kurumu answered with an infuriating smirk, "anyway, I'm just saying that he's engaged, but not in love. He's loyal to his fiancees because he's supposed to be, not because he's committed himself to any one of them. If you got a little adventurous and put in some effort, who knows what might come of it?"

"I assume you take the same tactic regarding Tsukune?" Yukari asked blithely, only to be rewarded with a pillow to the face.

Tobaki looked somewhat skeptical even as Kana and Mizore started staring at each other with renewed heat, as if their rivalry had been revived. "I'll give you that you probably know Ranma better than any of us, but it just feels wrong to take romantic advice from a succubus who's never even raped someone," she pointed out.

Kurumu's preening instantly shattered into indignation. "What does THAT matter? Actually, no, that should be a credit to me that I've never done that!"

Keito gave a questionable look as she stroked Tobaki's hair. "You've at least claimed some of the men you've charmed with your powers, right?"

"How is that any different from rape?" Kurumu demanded, with Moka nodding rapidly in support.

"Rape is intercourse without consent. If you hypnotize someone into giving consent, you're legally free and clear," Tobaki explained.

"That's twisted! It completely ignores the point of the laws!" Moka protested.

"Besides, any REAL succubus can seduce a man without hypnosis!" Kurumu said, stretching one arm behind her back and thrusting her chest out in a pose, "having to use force or cheap tricks just means you're weak!"

Tobaki nodded slowly, admitting that the logic made a crude kind of sense. "Okay, so how many men have you seduced, then?"

Kurumu didn't move from her pose, as if her body had become locked in place. Mizore, ever sensitive to local sources of moisture, noted that sweat was starting to bead on her forehead.

"Well? Are you having trouble counting them all?" Tobaki asked in a manner that somehow sounded innocent despite what she was actually asking.

"The m-mission of the s-s-succubus is t-to find our f-fated l-lover," Kurumu stuttered, her face turning bright red as she fought off the crushing embarrassment of having argued herself into a corner, "so, you know, it d-doesn't really matter-"

"Lolth's tears, she's a virgin," Keito said, looking stunned as Kurumu wilted.

This didn't really surprise everyone in the room, and even if Mizore and Kana hadn't been expecting to hear such a thing they didn't particularly care to make a big deal out of it. Still, Kurumu's damning silence caused Yukari to snicker and Tobaki to suddenly burst out laughing, rolling off her web and onto the cold, dirty floor of the shack.

Moka immediately placed a hand on one of Kurumu's shoulders, frowning. "And what's wrong with being a virgin? She just wants to give herself to someone she actually loves!"

Yukari shrugged as she smiled. "That's fine for, say, any species EXCEPT a succubus, but it's kind of her race's defining trait."

"Even succubae have feelings, you know? So what if we want our first time to be special?" Kurumu cried, flailing her arms as Tobaki kept giggling, "you can't judge a person by their sexual experience, even a succubus!"

"Then what are we supposed to judge you by?" Mizore asked blandly, sitting in a corner while rolling her lollipop candy around in her mouth.

Kurumu dropped her arms uncertainly, and then stared down at her chest.

"Don't go there," Yukari warned, "haven't you already lost enough dignity tonight?"

Kurumu suddenly growled, and a tear squeezed from the corner of her eye as she picked up her shirt and put it back on. "Oh, screw you guys! I'm going to go sleep with Tsukune right now!"

"Sure you are," Kana said, rolling her eyes as Kurumu stomped past and swung the shack's door open.

"Kurumu, wait! Don't do anything hasty because you're embarrassed!" Moka shouted, her own face flushed as she beckoned to her rival, "it's okay if you're different! There are vampires who never drink blood, too!"

Kurumu stopped, surprised. "Really, there are?"

"Sure! Even I used to drink tomato juice all the time!" Moka said, smiling pleasantly and gently taking hold of one of Kurumu's hands.

Tobaki had finally finished her snickering, and idly noted that Keito was gone as she wiped a tear from her eyes. "Wow, really? You ARE just as pathetic as she is!"

Moka gave the yochlol an annoyed glare. "Well, of course I drink blood NOW. I mean, we're already in high school! It would be weird If I didn't!"

It took her two seconds to realize what she had just said, which was still one second after an infuriated Kurumu snatched her hand away from the vampiress and then stepped out, slamming the door in her face.

_'Smooth lines there, Pinky. Not like it matters. Nine-to-one odds she spends the whole night in his sleeping bag and nothing happens. Seriously, see if you can get Yukari in on this.'_ Evil Moka mocked.

'Oh, shut up,' Moka thought bitterly.


	16. Litterers will be Persecuted

"Hello everyone! Yet again we've assembled to guess Ranma's species!"

Shizuka Nekonome said the lines with her usual level of pep, but her body language was notably unenthused. Her arms were crossed under her chest and her smile seemed extremely forced.

"This apparently hasn't gotten tiresome yet, so we've dug up another useless minor character to amuse you for a minute before we move on to the plot!"

Behind Shizuka, the Headmaster coughed lightly into his fist. "I'm not sure I would qualify myself as a 'minor character', much less-"

"So Mister Headmaster, what do you think Ranma is?" the nekomata asked, not even facing the man as she started rummaging through her pockets.

The Headmaster looked briefly perturbed, but nonetheless steepled his fingers in front of his shadowed face as his eyes glowed. "As Headmaster, I of course have unrestricted access to ALL the students' medical records, and I alone can request that their true nature be revealed in spite of Youkai Academy's rules."

"Uh huh. You don't say?" Shizuka mumbled, still not facing the Headmaster as she started writing out a text message on her cell phone.

"Although I rarely have to do so, in the case of Saotome, I needed to make a... special..."

The Headmaster trailed off as he saw that Shizuka wasn't paying the least bit of attention, and seemed to be somewhat irritated as she wrote her text message, her tail popping out of her skirt and swaying dangerously.

"Ahem! Is something the matter, Miss Nekonome?" the Headmaster asked, letting his arms drop.

Shizuka's hair-tufts seem to perk at his concern. "Something the matter? No, no! Why would something be the matter? Just because my role in the story has been reduced to a glorified Wikipedia reader? How could something like that bother me?!"

The Headmaster couldn't help but notice that the nekomata was still smiling, despite the fact that the hair on her tail had spiked in irritation, and her nails had grown noticeably longer and pointed.

"But as if that wasn't bad enough, I don't even get to do THAT MUCH this chapter! This is ridiculous! I'm putting in a complaint with my union rep!" Shizuka shouted.

The Headmaster cocked his head to one side. "I don't think he'll be taking messages. Richard is off gallivanting around with one of the protagonists. Didn't you hear? I think he even got his own song montage."

"GYAH!" Shizuka threw her phone down and then kicked it across the floor, every hair on her head now standing on end, "this is an injustice! I don't even get to interview people who matter anymore!"

"Er, I'm the Head-"

"And what happened to the newspaper club's role? We get nothing? Not even a mention! We used to matter, damn it! Entire plot arcs revolved around our operations!"

As Miss Nekonome started sniffling and tearing up, a sweatdrop crawled down the side of the Headmaster's hood, and he turned away from the emotional wreck of an instructor.

"Yes, well... I suppose it can remain a secret a little longer, then. Enjoy the chapter."

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Disclaimer: For those of you that wondered where I got the term "Double Hell" from, the correct answer is Penny Arcade.  
Some people play tennis. I erode the human soul.

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 15  
Litterers Will be Persecuted

* * *

"So then the gnomes were complaining about the dead guard, and they're all 'you lit the head of our sentry aflame'. So then I shrug and tell them 'it's the way he would have wanted to go'. Ha ha ha!" Richard guffawed mightily, holding his stomach.

His laughter trailed off as Ranma and Jadeite, both of whom were walking ahead of him through the dimly lit streets, ignored the warlock, opting instead to glare at each other.

"Nothing? Really? No reprimands? No encouragement? Not even an acknowledgment?" Richard asked, looking somewhat depressed. "Saotome, don't you have an opinion about burning people to death just because they're short?"

Ranma frowned and opened his mouth, but Jadeite spoke first.

"Don't. You know he can't tell the difference between positive and negative attention," the dark general warned.

"Of course I do," Richard said indignantly, "negative attention is what you call being stabbed repeatedly by an enraged mob."

Ranma and Jadeite glanced at each other again.

"Well, he's not wrong," Ranma admitted.

Jadeite rolled his eyes. "Saotome, listen. I know we've had our disagreements-"

"I just want you to know, before you go any further, that I have a list of twenty of your bones to break the moment you fire up the magic," Ranma said grimly, "the list used to be shorter, but I've been building up a lot of frustration at the Headmaster for sending me here with you two."

Jadeite was silent for several more seconds, weighing whether or not to call Ranma's bluff. Certainly it wasn't like him to put up with someone like Ranma ordinarily, but he found the boy's utterly fearless bravado unnerving. Additionally, the fact that he didn't know Ranma's species - he had heard he was some sort of tornado-making monster, but had no specifics - ensured he wasn't about to actually attack his student without a decisive advantage.

"It is not just for my own petty revenge that I seek to eliminate the Sailor Senshi," Jadeite finally continued, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Do tell," Ranma drawled.

"Amongst devil hunters they are among the most dangerous and indiscriminate kind," Jadeite explained, his eyes darting over to a couple passing by them on the sidewalk as he spoke, "do you know that almost a quarter of Youkai Academy's graduates are eventually caught and eliminated by the Senshi?"

"So what?" Ranma asked, shrugging.

Jadeite halted briefly. "It does not concern you at all that your peers are being hunted down and killed for not being human?"

"Not really," Ranma said, but then he hesitated, thinking of some of his friends in the Protection Committee. Now that he stopped to think about it, he WOULD be pretty upset if Chopper or Kouma got caught in a scuffle and were obliterated by some trigger-happy magical girls. And the idea of one of the girls, especially Mizore or Kana, being killed for accidentally revealing their species made him feel slightly ill.

"Well, okay, so maybe I do care," Ranma admitted, scratching the back of his head as Jadeite smirked.

"So you can see that this isn't a matter so simple as villainous monsters slaying human heroes," Jadeite said, wagging a finger, "the denizens of the monster realm, while not possessing recognized rights or legal protections, must be able to-"

"Hey," Ranma suddenly interrupted, quirking an eyebrow, "where did that number come from, anyway?"

"Number come the what now?" Jadeite said, caught flat-footed.

"That thing about a quarter of the monster grads getting killed by these chicks," Ranma asked, frowning, "who keeps track of that sort of thing, anyway? How would anybody know that?"

Jadeite stopped in his tracks, and his eyes wandered off to the side as he answered. "Well, it's less a statistic and more an educated guess."

_Whumph!_ "Since we're being honest now, that was less a rebuttal and more a knee to the stomach," Ranma deadpanned as he removed his leg from Jadeite's gut, causing the professor to slump onto the ground.

Jadeite coughed as he held his abdomen, but then smirked as he staggered to his feet. "You... Saotome, I'll never know why you're so quick to side with these human fools..."

"Because I AM a human fool!" Ranma shouted. "I mean, I'm not a fool, but I am a human! Humans aren't fools by default! Also, why are you smiling?"

"Because we passed by a hospital two blocks back, and you were so busy conversing with me that you didn't even notice that Professor Richard stopped following us," Jadeite explained smugly.

Ranma's eyes bugged out as he whirled around, and he could see that among the tall office buildings that dominated this section of the prefecture he could see a flickering light that highlighted a rising plume of black smoke.

"This... This is..." Ranma stammered, before glancing back at Jadeite, "this is surprisingly subtle and well-planned for you," he admitted.

"I do some of my best plotting while sulking hatefully in the background," Jadeite explained with a shrug, "I'm sure the Senshi are already on their way, so why don't you go rescue the ordinary humans you care so much about while your teachers rid the world of those miniskirted pests?"

Ranma grimaced as he bolted down the street toward the hospital, and Jadeite grinned despite the lingering pain in his abdomen.

"Tonight, at last, my revenge will be complete! Ha ha ha! Ha ha! MWA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!"

* * *

"Now this is a very tricky shot. We have an eastern crosswind of about eight kilometers per hour, plus a good deal of smoke obscuring the target," Richard said in a hushed voice from the largely empty hospital parking lot he was standing in.

He was currently stooped over slightly while holding his summoned vorpal golf club in preparation for his next swing.

"His choice of club won't make the shot any easier, sacrificing the parabola trajectory for the greater impact power of a straight-line casting effect. Only time will tell if that was the right call," Richard whispered in a different voice, adding a rather poor British accent.

At Richard's feet was a thrumming sphere of purple energy that seemed to contort violently every few seconds before snapping back to its original shape.

"This is his third stroke, and he'll have to hit the third story though the small window on the right side in order to sink this shot into the maternity ward," Richard said, switching back to the first voice. "A hush falls over the crowd."

This wasn't entirely accurate, as there was a fair bit of screaming coming from the top floor of the hospital, though it was hard to hear over the fire alarms and the rush of water from the fire suppression system.

"Here comes the swing!" Richard pulled his arms back, and a sharp crackle sparked from the head of the club as he swung at the trembling ball of destruction hovering beneath him.

_Whump!_ As it so happened, Ranma landed feet-first on Richard's head a split second before he struck the projectile, and the shot went wide and low, veering wildly into the parking lot before Ranma vaulted off of him toward the burning building.

Richard stood up straight immediately, watching as his projectile vanished into the side of a parked ambulance.

"Tch! Slice."

_Clang!_ The ambulance promptly collapsed in the middle, having been cut cleanly in two.

Richard turned back to the hospital, noting that Ranma had already entered one of the second-story windows where he had already landed two fireballs.

"Dang. I think this is a three-par structure," Richard mumbled, rubbing his chin as his summoned club fizzled out of existence.

"Stop right there!"

Richard turned on his heel, and his eyebrows rose as he beheld a group of five girls standing on a building across the street, all of them wearing color-coded sailor uniforms.

"Hospitals are a place of tenderness and healing, where the sick and the weak can find comfort and families find hope! To attack one like this is an unforgivable crime!" shouted a girl with long blonde ponytails. "I am the warrior of love and justice, Sailor Moon!"

"Sailor Mercury!"

"Sailor Mars!"

"Sailor Jupiter!"

"Sailor Venus!"

As the other four girls finished their role call, Sailor Moon pointed down at Richard. "And in the name of the moon, I will punish you!"

"You dare stand before me with your cries for justice and mercy?" Richard demanded suddenly, his voice booming with such volume that it staggered the Senshi despite the distance between them. "Do you not know who I am?"

Richard's hands glowed brightly with an ugly green tint, and behind him flickered a large, ghostly shape that resembled a cloaked figure with a scythe, a shadow that seemed to literally fight against the dim lights hanging over the parking lot as it became visible.

"I am Richard, fools! A hundred realms curse my name, a million souls weep at my visage, and as I unmake the enemies before me, entire realities shrivel to dust in the currents of my power!"

The massive shadow of the reaper seemed to stabilize, and a bright red light suddenly glared out from the hooded face of the apparition as skeletal hands lifted the ornate scythe that seemed to writhe in the moonlight.

"You dare speak to ME of justice? Very well; I will watch your fates unravel in the burning tides of the aether!"

The apparition swung its scythe down menacingly as Richard lifted one hand, beckoning to the Senshi.

"Come. Oblivion awaits."

Sailor Mars clenched her teeth as she snapped up several Shinto talisman. "Hmph! For someone lobbing fireballs at a hospital, he sure talks a big game."

Sailor Moon stood rigidly in her introductory pose, her eyes wide.

"He's probably less powerful at short range!" Sailor Mercury said, scanning the warlock with her visor.

Sailor Moon's arm finally dropped, and she bit her lip as her body started trembling.

"Let's get down there and surround him!" Jupiter declared, "we'll show that son of a-"

"WAIT!" Sailor Moon suddenly cried, startling her teammates into silence as she crossed her arms in front of her face in an X. "I want a do-over!"

For several seconds the sounds of the hospital's alarms utterly dominated the confrontation.

"What?" Sailor Mars asked, her arms falling fully limp at her sides.

"His speech was cooler than ours! It's not fair!" Sailor Moon cried, pointing at Richard as tears gathered on the corners of her eyes.

Sailor Mercury slid her visor up onto her forehead. "Moon, I don't think that's really feasible right-"

"All right, fine," Richard said, the cloaked apparition behind him fading away as he crossed his arms over his chest, "we'll make it best two out of three. But you go first."

"Oh God. Is this happening? This is actually happening, isn't it?" Sailor Mars grumbled as she started to massage her temples.

"Er, wait, do we have to go down to the street and come back up now?" Sailor Venus wondered aloud.

"Don't worry! I've got this!" Moon shouted, spreading her arms out in front of the others as her eyes blazed with determination.

"Hateful monster! Your end has arrived!" Sailor Moon shouted, stepping forward and sweeping one arm before her. In contrast to before, her voice was curiously amplified, and the windows of the building below trembled slightly from the powerful vibrations.

"Hospitals are a haven for the ill and the weak, a sanctuary and a sacred temple of healing and hope!" Sailor Moon boomed, motes of light starting to come off her back like sparks from a flame, "for violating this place you will NOT be forgiven!"

With a gesture, the magical light at her back exploded into form, and the other Senshi stared incredulously as a massive angel of white fire coalesced behind their leader, its wings folding inward to blanket the sides of the building as its featureless face stared down at Richard.

"The just, the pure, and the righteous will cleanse you from this place, and your blighted soul will drown in our light!"

The apparition behind Sailor Moon gently lifted one arm, and a huge lance of yellow light flickered into place in its hand, aimed firmly at the warlock.

"I am Sailor Moon, champion of love and justice! Speak your name, abomination, and then be purged!" Sailor Moon's eyes blazed with uncharacteristic rage as she pointed down at her foe, thin arcs of white lightning whipping about her hand and wrist.

"Did... Did any of you know she could do that?" Sailor Venus asked awkwardly, prompting the other Senshi to shake their heads mutely.

Richard scratched his masked chin briefly before he clasped his hands behind him back.

"You ask my name? Really? I, radical reaver of rogues and ranger riff raff, who racks the rambuctious rabble and ravages ramparts? I am rapacious, raucous, rowdy and rancid! To reflect rote rationale and rant ritual righteousness randomly is to ratify the rapid rending of rectums rather than rash retribution rank with ramshackle rancor! I remonstrate rightly to refuse the ransom of rapscallions in regrettable, racy raiment, and reject relevant reciprocation, renumeration, and renunciation as repulsive remarks to release remiss repentance!"

Richard stopped to cough into his fist, and then he pointed at Sailor Moon. "Repartee remitted, recall Richard, reviled rivals."

Sailor Moon continued to hold her pose for several more seconds, still illuminated by the massive angel of light towering immediately behind her.

Then it blinked out of existence, and the warrior of love and justice turned around and broke into a full sprint.

"RUN! He's too much for us!" Sailor Moon cried, her ponytails whipping wildly behind her in the cool night air.

"Hey! You get back here!" Sailor Mars shouted, taking off after the blonde with a vein popping up on her head.

The other Senshi soon joined them with varying degrees of hesitation and confusion, and soon Richard was alone with nothing but the sounds of distant shouting and fire engine alarms to disturb him.

The warlock silently raised his hands and made a complex gesture with them, accompanied by a small flash of light.

After a brief delay, a line of massive digital text appeared in the air in front of him, accompanied by a loud shout from nowhere.

_You win!_

Then, after another delay, another line appeared below the first in even bigger characters.

_PERFECT!_

"All too easy," Richard said maliciously as he adopted his win pose, his hands bursting into flame as he glowered at nothing.

_Clong!_ Suddenly the warlock's head pitched forward as a depleted fire extinguisher smashed into the back of his skull.

Taking a moment to regain his balance, Richard glanced behind him to see Ranma standing behind him, in her girl form and holding a pair of large exinguishers that looked like they had seen heavy recent use. In addition to being the wrong gender, the redhead's damp clothes had been badly singed in places, and one sleeve had been torn off.

"Hey," Ranma greeted, dropping the empty canisters, "you done? If so, let's get the other jackass and go."

"That didn't take you as long as I expected," Richard admitted, turning on his heel and walking toward the street.

"I've gotten pretty good at putting out fires recently," Ranma grumbled, "I suppose I should thank you for all the extra practice, but I wouldn't mean it."

"That's okay," Richard said with a shrug, "save anyone interesting?"

"A few doctors were trapped behind a collapsed wall, but mostly I got patients who couldn't get out of their beds, then put out the rest of the fire," Ranma said as she crossed the street, noticing that among the background noise of emergency vehicles arriving at the hospital there was a strange and persistent thumping sound.

"Hey! Other jackass! We're done!" Richard called.

_Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!_ Jadeite did not respond to Richard's call, being occupied as he was with slamming his forehead into the wall of an adjacent building over and over again.

"What's his problem? We won, didn't we?" Richard asked.

"Who knows. Mind helping me knock him out? It's getting really late, and I don't want him attacking me in my sleep," Ranma asked.

"Okay!"

* * *

Tsukune groaned softly as his mind slowly surfaced to consciousness, informing him that dawn had passed and a brand new day awaited his attention.

His back felt fairly stiff from sleeping on a thin bed of straw laid over the ground, but besides that he felt almost shockingly comfortable. His sleeping bag cradled him in soft, pillowy warmth, and an enchanting scent seemed to surround him.

"Mmm... Tsukune..."

His sleeping bag also seemed to be erotically moaning his name, which his rapidly clearing mind was pretty sure wasn't a real feature.

Slowly cracking his eyes open, he was extremely perturbed - though hardly surprised - to see Kurumu's face mere inches from his, still sleeping peacefully. She was hugging him loosely with her cheek cradled on his shoulder, and through the fabric of her heart-print cotton pajamas he could easily feel the heavy softness of her chest resting on his.

Tsukune's face flushed deeply as his heart started racing, and his head started to feel dizzy as he started panicking first thing after waking up.

Unsure of what to do or say, but determining that any sort of rational response was harder the longer he spent staring at Kurumu's beautiful smile, Tsukune twisted his neck around to face the other direction.

His face promptly drained of its excess color as he stared into the face of Ranma's pet spider, which was waiting barely an inch away. Its gleaming, milky eyes stared patiently into Tsukune's, and he was acutely aware of the two viciously curved fangs that hung under the creature's head, close enough to brush the tip of his nose if it was so inclined.

Tsukune's thundering heart stopped at the horrifying sight, and his earlier panicked arousal died instantly, leaving him in a curious sense of calm.

He turned his head to stare straight up, and then slowly pushed himself into the sitting position, incidentally moving Kurumu enough to wake her.

"Huhn? Oh, 'Kune," Kurumu said groggily, smiling softly as she woke up herself, "g'morning."

The succubus then sat up so that she was partially straddling her bed-mate and then stretched her arms over her head, groaning as Tsukune could only sit and stare at a truly heroic display of cleavage.

It would have been quite nice were the previous image of a giant spider's face not been burned into his brain, the undiluted creepiness perfectly negating Kurumu's sex appeal in some bizarre, fragile emotional balance.

Kurumu finished her very unsubtle attempt to goad Tsukune into feeling her up, and then noticed the gigantic black horror waiting next to the sleeping bag. "And good morning to you too, Guile! Come here, you!"

"Wait. Wait! Gah!" Tsukune grit his teeth as Guile took enthusiastically to Kurumu's suggestion, scuttling over his lap and forcing the human to concentrate on remaining absolutely still.

"Good boy! Good boy!" Kurumu cooed as she picked up the giant spider, lifting it up onto her shoulder and wiggling a finger against its pedipalps.

Tsukune took the opportunity to extract himself from his sleeping bag, not needing to know the particulars of why Kurumu had been sleeping with him. He could guess her motivations easily enough, and so long as they both woke up clothed, he was willing to let the incident slide.

As he passed the shed and spied Moka seated against the wall, however, it occurred to him that not everyone might be so forgiving.

"M-Moka! Good morning!" he shouted, his voice rather wooden as he straightened involuntarily. "Hi! How are you?"

The normally cheerful girl seemed to be in low spirits, and as she gave him a suspicious stare, it wasn't hard to guess why.

"So Kurumu really did spend all night with you," the vampiress mumbled as droplets of sweat beaded on Tsukune's forehead.

"Now, wait, it wasn't what you-" Tsukune was cut off as an annoyed snort came from behind him.

"Nothing happened. We just slept," Kurumu affirmed as she walked past Tsukune, cradling Guile against her chest, "really Moka, do you think I'd go assault someone in their sleep? Give me a little credit, here."

_'Told you she didn't have the guts,'_ Evil Moka said, _'I mean, if she did, she would have allured him into love slavery by now. And now not only do you not have any winning bets to collect, but you also got to look like a jealous little-'_

"Would you SHUT UP!" Moka shouted, startling Tsukune and Kurumu.

"What? Are you THAT upset that I got to sleep next to him? First come, first serve!" Kurumu retorted.

"No, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to me!" Moka explained, rubbing her forehead as a great deal of snickering erupted within her head.

"Well, you're still being noisy, so I don't think you're listening to yourself," noted Mizore as she walked by behind Moka, looking slightly more lethargic than usual.

"Mizore! Wait!" Kurumu said, instantly switching topics and earning a great deal of silent gratitude from Tsukune, "do you know where Keito is?"

"She and Tobaki are out hunting. Why?"

"Hunting? But we brought food with us," Tsukune pointed out.

"Meh. Predators. Go figure," Kurumu muttered, "anyway, after we get washed up, I want to talk to you about keeping tabs on Keito for the rest of this trip."

Mizore gave the succubus a sleepy, probably sarcastic salute and then trudged along her way as Kurumu left as well.

Moka, feeling a pang in her stomach when she heard her friends talking about food, shyly approached Tsukune. "Well, I guess it's time for breakfast, so..."

The human boy wasn't exactly happy about the immediate prospect of being snacked on, but Tsukune was at least glad that the previous topic had lapsed. "All right, fine. Let's find somewhere more private..." He frowned as he looked over the sunflower field behind them.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, not really," Tsukune reassured her, turning back around, "I was just wondering what Keito would be hunting. Yukari said there were almost no animals around because of the garigari plants, right? So what's there left to hunt?"

* * *

"What do you mean all the crows are gone?" Oyakata asked, scowling.

Ruby grimaced as she stared down at the floor helplessly. "Well, not all of them, but a great many vanished overnight, and some of them have gone silent this morning while I was in contact with them. I have no explanation, my lady."

The old witch grit her teeth as she turned and walked into the foyer, her dirty and tattered robe leaving dirty trails over the floor.

"There may be more to our intruders than we had anticipated," Oyakata spat irritably, "but our plan remains the same. Now that the human is dead, we may find out what the monsters' objective is and-"

"Yeah, about that," echoed a ghostly, high-pitched voice nervously, "that... didn't work out as planned."

Oyakata and Ruby halted in surprise, and the former snapped her head toward the large bookcase dominating the wall.

The book of imprisonment and summoning that the crone had used the previous day was on the shelf in its proper place, but a dark mist seeped gradually from its bindings, indicating that not all was well.

"What are YOU doing back?" Oyakata asked before she processed what the magic beast had just said. "Wait, you failed? The human still lives?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," the spirit's voice intoned bitterly, "there was a little intelligence gap that compromised my mission. Specifically, the gap between the front of your skull and the rear of it. "

Oyakata bristled, infuriated that a mere magic beast would speak to its master in such a way after suffering failure. "The fault is mine? How? You could not even kill a single human!"

"Well, seeing how you called me in to do that job, you can't seem to manage it either!" the feline snapped back, "besides, I never even got to the target! He's being guarded by giant spiders laying tripwires and net traps, and the monsters you warned me about are willing to kill apparently harmless animals on sight out of sheer paranoia! How am I supposed to work like this?" The book trembled slightly on the shelf, shaking with the feline's rage, "I was killed before I even saw the guy!"

"Wait, if you were killed, how are you still alive?" Ruby asked.

"I have nine lives. Well, I'm down to five now, actually. The other three being HER fault," the feline explained.

"Be silent before I burn your tome, you useless cat," Oyakata sneered, "so you can't kill the human after all. Fine. You may have wasted our time, but I have many other methods at my disposal."

She walked up to the bookshelf and then selected a different book, this one much thinner than the summoning tome and unbound.

"I wanted to use you so that the creatures that foolishly truck with the human would have something else to blame for the boy's murder. But if you are not up to the task then we can't afford so much subtlety."

The crone flipped through the book for a few minutes while Ruby watched nervously, wondering what measures they would have to take now that a direct assassination had failed.

"Ah, this one will do," Oyakata said suddenly, placing her finger on a yellowed page, "a wasting curse. And it can be used from a scrying, without any materials from the human himself."

Oyakata scuffled toward the back shelves, which were stocked with numerous vials, boxes, and jars which stored components for the witches' alchemy. "It will take time to work, which is unfortunate, so he may seek us out for a cure. It is, however, extraordinarily painful. So, you know, you have to take the good with the bad."

Ruby shuddered. Such deadly magics were certainly not to be used lightly, since the obviously unnatural affliction would probably be traced back to them. To say nothing of inflicting the agony of having one's flesh and organs slowly melt away over an entire day.

"Ruby," Oyakata said sharply as she unscrewed a lid from a jar of milky fluid, "rally a few crows and set them upon the human. I'll need the worthless cur's image in my crystal ball for at least a full minute for the spell to cast."

"At once, my lady," Ruby said obediently, closing her eyes and holding up her crescent wand as she sought out the tiny souls of her avian familiars.

Before long, she found some of them picking at a dead animal at the very northern edge of the sunflower field, staying well out of reach of both the garigari plants that infested the field and the monsters' camp.

With a mere thought, all three birds lifted their heads, and Ruby's mind connected with theirs. Three similar but subtly different images floated within her thoughts as she saw through their eyes, and as Ruby approached the crystal ball in the center of the room she gave the crows their instructions.

The crows hesitated.

Ruby could feel their dread gnawing at her stomach, a ghostly echo of the crows' own emotions. They knew very well that a great many of their flock had fallen. Their animal instincts warned them of predators near their target, and for the first time that Ruby could recall, the crows tried to resist her will.

Ruby didn't like the idea of forcing her familiars onto a suicide mission, but it was sadly necessary for Lady Oyakata's strategy to work. Besides that, if Ruby didn't do it, then Oyakata would just force them to do the job herself.

With a sigh, Ruby enforced her will upon the distant crows, and the birds immediately rushed into the air in a burst of shadowy feathers.

"I have all we need," Oyakata said as she dropped a collection of vials and small pouches onto the table, "give me a moment to fetch the cauldron."

As the crone walked to the corner of the room and started dragging a hefty wrought iron cauldron toward the table, Ruby spoke up again.

"My lady, are you sure this is wise?" the teenage witch asked nervously, "resorting to curses just seems so... personal," she admitted.

"Yes. Because this IS personal," Oyakata answered, "his kind have defiled countless acres with their cities, farms, and dumps, and then, when we are finally on the verge of DOING something about it, he leads a pack of hostile monsters right into our midst, letting them wreak havoc amongst our precious flowers. Just like all humans, where he treads he leads naught but destruction in his wake!"

Ruby instantly felt her anger rise to a boiling point, and she nodded with renewed determination. "You're right, my lady. This is the least the human deserves for his defiling presence."

"Oh, for Bast's sake," said the disembodied voice of the cat, "do you seriously believe that nonsense?"

Oyakata's eyebrow twitched as she glanced back at the bookshelf. "Do you want to lose another life, kitten? You know nothing of the suffering we've endured because of humans!"

"True, I really don't. Though that could be because I've spent the last SIXTY YEARS imprisoned in a BOOK!" the feline snapped, "what I'm trying to say is, you can't really claim moral superiority here."

"After I'm through with this, I will re-bind your prison," the hag said with a sneer, "we have no need of advice from a useless beast such as yourself."

Oyakata opened one of the pouches, dumping a great deal of gray powder into the cauldron.

"It begins. Ruby, have the crows sighted our prey?"

Ruby nodded, and her hands hovered over the crystal ball. "They have, my lady. The human's end is near." The fog in the glass sphere seemed to part, revealing an image of Tsukune massaging his neck while talking to Kouma.

"Focus on the human, Ruby," Oyakata said, opening a jar of cloudy fluid and draining it into the cauldron.

The image slowly crept closer to Tsukune's face as the crone started adding ingredients to her mix, and Ruby waved her hands slowly over the crystal ball as Oyakata cackled.

"Yes, this is it! The human will suffer and die for his trespass!" Oyakata started unscrewing another jar full of wiggling tendrils when all of a sudden the image shook violently, like a camera being jarred while it was recording.

Ruby yelped, recoiling from the crystal ball. "My lady! One of the crows was knocked out!" Gritting her teeth, she leaned closer to the sphere. "Hold on! I'll find out what's happening!"

"No!" Oyakata snapped, causing Ruby to flinch back, "we must focus! I just need a little longer!" She quickly dumped the contents of the jar into the cauldron and then started crushing some exotic leaves using a mortar and pestle.

Ruby staggered as the image in the crystal ball shook again, and her hands slammed onto the small table to steady herself. "My lady! There's only one left, and he's frightened! He's trying to flee!" the younger witch cried, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain. The second crow had not been knocked out and was in fact being punctured by something while still telepathically connected to Ruby. Although the focus of the crystal ball mercifully remained on Tsukune, the crow's death cries echoed painfully in her head, giving an ugly clue of the awful fate it had suffered.

"Hold him there, damn it! We almost have the human!" Oyakata commanded as she stabbed a thick wooden rod into the cauldron, stirring the arcane brew.

"Good enough!" Oyakata growled, tossing away the rod and grabbing hold of the crystal ball. "Spirits nesting in Earth below! Infest hearts that beat and blood that flows! As dust gives way to bone and skin, leave flesh to rot and body to thin!"

The cauldron shook as the incantation finished, and the solution inside quickly turned from an ugly gray sludge to a sickly green slime.

Oyakata grinned in triumph as she let go of the crystal ball, letting it fall into the mixture... just as the image in the sphere suddenly jolted and shifted from that of the young human to the leering face of a dark-skinned girl with pointed ears.

The crone's smile died slowly as she stared down into the face's image, which almost seemed to be mocking her as the crystal ball slowly sank into the cursed brew, eventually sliding underneath the bubbling green surface as a dark, foul-smelling mist rose into the air.

Ruby gasped as she pushed herself upright, using the scrying table for support. Being telepathically linked with an animal familiar when it died was always painful, and there was a certain amount of emotional damage to consider when one was forcing the utterly terrified beast to remain still while it was picked off.

"My lady, is it done?" Ruby asked through heavy gasps, "is the human's fate sealed?"

Oyakata hesitated, but eventually hung her head. "No. The scrying's focus changed at the last moment, afflicting some other girl." Ruby's face paled - as much as it was possible, anyway, given her complexion - and her expression twisted into one of horror.

"You MISSED with a CURSE?" asked the magic cat's disembodied voice, snickering.

"I swear, I will skin you and make you into a hat," Oyakata snarled at the book.

* * *

_Crunch! Crunch!_ Tobaki made a face as she chewed on the crow, having stuck it in her mouth whole.

Tsukune finished with Kouma, and turned away as the hellhound shifted forms and ran out into the sunflower fields.

"So you've been eating the birds around here, huh? Are they tasty?" Tsukune asked Tobaki somewhat awkwardly.

"Not really," Tobaki answered around a mouthful of feathers, "these ones are rather well-fed, but it's still just a scrawny bird."

Behind her, Keito discarded a dried, feathered husk wrapped in webbing while she wiped her mouth with her wrist. "Is there a problem, Captain? Any moral objections to killing dumb animals for food?"

"None," Tsukune said bluntly, locking glares with Keito, "as long as you restrict it to wild animals, there's no problem. Did you run into any trouble while you were out and about? We are in witch territory, after all."

"Just a few garigaris," Tobaki said as she swallowed the chewed-up remains of the crow, "I took care of them."

"Well, if you've already had breakfast and scouted..." Tsukune trailed off as he glanced at Tobaki. "Tobaki, are you all right? You're sweating an awful lot."

The demon blinked. "Sweating? What's sweating?" There were tiny beads of moisture gathering over her skin, though it wasn't obvious given her dark complexion.

Keito frowned. "It's when mammals secrete moisture to better absorb heat. Tobaki doesn't do that, though," she said, walking up to Tobaki and grabbing hold of her arm and the top of her head.

"Well, since you took on human form, wouldn't you sweat like a human?" Tsukune reasoned.

"Some of us, maybe, but not all," Keito said, annoyed that she had to explain this, "our imitations of humanity... vary in how complete they are. Some of us would take on a human's specific biology, like me, but for some others they concentrate on the shape and appearance and little else. Especially in Tobaki's case, since her natural form has very little in the way of organs or complex anatomy."

Keito pulled away her hands, and was quite alarmed when the one atop Tobaki's head came away with clumps of damp hair sticking to it. "Something's definitely wrong!"

"Yukari!" Tsukune called out toward the shed, "come here, please! It's an emergency!"

Tobaki looked nervous as she stared at her hands, which now had a sheen of moisture over them. "I th-think you're right, big sis! I feel strange!"

Yukari emerged from the shed, looking curious while Kana and Moka followed.

"What's wrong? What's all the yelling about?"

"Tobaki's sick!" Keito shouted, for the first time displaying what the others could recognize as naked fear and real concern.

Yukari was not so sympathetic. "That's impossible," she mumbled as she approached the trio, "Tobaki's a demon, her cells would be complete anathema to every virus and bacteria on Earth."

_Shlorp!_ Tobaki's left arm suddenly came off at the elbow, tumbling to the ground as the flesh around the joint started to melt and run like wax.

"I stand corrected," Yukari deadpanned as the others gaped in horror, "what, did you come down with magic leprosy or something?"

"I don't know what happened!" Tobaki cried, flailing her left stump and flinging small globs of yellowing sludge everywhere, "do you think that last crow I ate was bad?" The rest of her skin was starting to break out in rashes, the deep chocolate brown skin turning yellow.

"Like I said, there's no way something so mundane could affect a demon," the young witch assured her, approaching the fallen limb and observing it closely as it seemed to melt into a yellow sludge.

"Well, do something about it!" Keito yelled desperately.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Moka asked, wringing her hands. "Do you need some water, or a cold press, or-"

_Shlump!_ Tobaki's other arm came off at the shoulder, trailing thick strings of melting flesh from the sleeve of the T-shirt she was wearing.

"Maybe a bucket?" Yukari guessed.

"Waaaah..." Tobaki looked at her fallen limbs fearfully, feeling her legs start to wobble. "I think... This is it, everyone..."

"No! Hang in there!" Keito exclaimed, her eyes wide.

"Tobaki!" Moka cried, rushing forward and seizing the demon girl by the shoulders. Her fingers instantly sunk into the cloth of her shirt, as if the flesh beneath it were little more than jelly.

"Sendo, hurry up and do something!" Keito snapped.

"Like what?" Yukari shouted back angrily from where she was crouched over the remains of the first limb, "do I look like a cleric to you? When did I become the team medic?"

"Oh, no..." Tsukune turned his gaze aside as Tobaki's legs buckled, and Moka gaped as the demon's body stretched down to the ground, slowly melting into the rapidly expanding yellow puddle like a molasses waterfall. Tobaki's head and shoulders were held aloft thanks to Moka holding on to the girl's shirt, though it was clear that they too were dissolving fast.

"It's... It's okay," Tobaki gasped, her lips barely able to move as her facial features started slowly vanished under rivulets of yellow goop, "it doesn't... feel that bad... anymore."

"Tobaki!" Keito cried, real tears crawling down her face as she suddenly hugged the melting demon from behind. This didn't do much except squeeze some of the horrific sludge onto her chest and arms, though the others were quite surprised by the gesture.

"My... Only... Regret..." Tobaki gasped out, her face reduced to a rapidly draining balloon of slimy filth, "is that... I didn't get to see... Ranma's penis..."

Kana pursed her lips as she saluted firmly, a single tear leaking from her exposed eye.

Moka found those last words far more awkward than the siren, but still forced herself to speak during the demon's terrifying final moments, trying to do anything she could think of to ease the girl's suffering. "Don't worry! It isn't even that amazing!"

In retrospect, she certainly shouldn't have bothered.

"YOU'VE **SEEN** IT?!" Though the cry of surprise, shock, and in one case, eager anticipation definitely came from more than one person, Kana's voice immediately dominated the outcry, almost knocking Moka off her feet with a wave of sonic force.

As a result, Tobaki's damp, empty shirt was torn from her hands, and it fell into a slimy heap off on the side as the last remnants of Tobaki's body finished dissolving into a yellow, foul-smelling goo.

"To... Tobaki... Why?" Keito sobbed openly as she knelt on the ground, not caring who saw her moment of honest, crushing emotion or how it would reflect on her reputation. "How did this happen? Who could-"

"Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. What a loss, she was the best of us, yadda yadda," Kana rattled off quickly, her eye locked on a very confused Moka, "seriously though, what did you mean when you said 'it isn't even that amazing'?"

Yukari likewise didn't seem too distraught over the Committee's loss, hopping up to her feet. "Do you mean it's KIND of amazing, but you've seen better? Or you've imagined better, maybe?"

"On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best-"

Tsukune promptly cut off the last question, his face pale but determined. "Stop it. That's enough," he said, massaging his forehead as he stared grimly at the puddle that remained of his treasurer, "you can gossip later, but for now, we've been attacked. Yukari, figure out what..."

He trailed off. "Wait. Where did that last voice come from?" he asked uncertainly, "who was asking about a scale?"

"That was me. Sorry," apologized a rough, disembodied voice that seemed to echo in everyone's ears, prompting a small but sharp pain in their heads with every syllable. "What were you saying about the attack?"

Tsukune didn't know who was speaking, but Keito immediately lit up, leaping to her feet. "TOBAKI! You're alive!"

Everyone's eyes immediately locked onto the slime puddle that the demon had left behind, and all but Keito and Yukari recoiled in disgust as a giant red eye slowly broke the surface of the puddle and started glancing around.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry I broke human form outside of combat, Captain. I'll change back right away."

Tsukune watched in morbid fascination as the puddle started to rise, the eye being carried upward on a tide of yellow filth that quivered and surged in ways that made his stomach turn. Although he was aware that the sight of Tobaki's true form wasn't THAT awful objectively, he could feel himself physically repulsed by the creature, as if his body and soul objected to its existence even if his mind was more tolerant.

Tobaki stretched upward to a height of about five feet, and then her eye trembled slightly, as if straining from some herculean effort. It looked bizarre enough on its own, and wasn't helped at all when Yukari walked up to the yochlol and started poking it with a stick she found on the ground.

"I... I can't change back!" Tobaki complained. "Something's wrong! It's really hard to form limbs, for some reason!" Short tentacles of yellow ooze wormed their way out from the greater mass, but they moved ponderously, like earthworms struggling out of the dirt.

"Don't strain yourself, Tobaki," Keito said encouragingly, gently stroking the demon down what Tsukune guessed might have been her back, "it's enough that you're okay."

Yukari clicked her tongue as she stepped back. "Okay, so I was right from the outset. This is no disease."

As everyone's attention focused on her, Yukari tilted the rim of her hat up and locked eyes with Tsukune. "Tobaki's been cursed. A nasty one, meant to kill the victim slowly and painfully. Whoever the witches on this knoll are, they're serious about trying to get rid of us."

Keito frowned. "Your analysis technique consists of poking the victim with a stick?"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Yukari said in an unusually bright and cheerful voice as she smiled, "I didn't realize that YOU were the expert on this sort of thing! That would explain why you were screaming for my help a minute ago!"

Keito winced, and a stray tentacle patted her head comfortingly (and incidentally leaving a knot of gunk in her hair).

"You said the curse is lethal?" Tsukune asked, trying not to look directly at the writhing pile of hateful ooze.

"Well, it's supposed to be, but it depends on the target's physiology. Tobaki's is rather unique, so her body had an unusual reaction to the curse. While it is keeping her from maintaining a stable form, she's not in any real danger," Yukari pointed out, "had any of us been affected, we would have probably died over the course of an entire day. Or several days in the case of Moka, Chopper, and maybe Mizore, since their bodies would be resistant to rotting away."

"So she'll be fine. Great. Next is why," Tsukune asked grimly, "I mean, I know why the witches might have attacked us, but why Tobaki specifically? What has she done?"

Yukari, Moka, and Kana all adopted anxious expressions as they glanced at the giant red eyeball floating in a pile of vomitous sludge.

"I mean what has she done specific to these circumstances?" Tsukune clarified, looking annoyed, "I doubt the witches are just trying to take revenge for her victims at school."

"Well, I got in a political argument with that dumb liberal bus driver. Then I helped set up the shed for us to sleep in. I guess I made fun of Kurono a lot last night, but I don't see how they would care..." Tobaki rattled off anything she could think of, a tendril of slime reaching up and scratching at the top of her eyeball thoughtfully. "And this morning I was eating all those crows for breakfast-"

"Ah. There you go," Yukari interrupted, "that might have done it."

"What? Why?" Keito demanded, "you all hacked up dozens of those plant beasts yesterday, and you're all fine! Why should Tobaki get cursed for eating some filthy birds?"

"Birds are common familiar animals," Yukari pointed out, shrugging, "our hosts may have gotten especially upset over you eating a favorite animal, or maybe one of the crows was cursed itself as a trap and passed it on to anything that ate it. Hard to say, but chances are it was the birds."

"All right. Then that just leaves what we're going to do about it," Tsukune mumbled, "Yukari, can the curse be cured?"

"Sure, but I don't have the materials on hand. I'll bet our mystery friends do, though," she said.

"Good. Then we'll wait for the others to get back, then we'll eat and see about finding these witches," Tsukune said, crossing his arms over his chest, "I had Kurumu and Kouma scouting the sunflower field, so hopefully they'll find a dwelling."

"What should I do in the meantime, Captain?" Tobaki asked, whipping a yellow tentacle about in the air in imitation of raising her hand.

Tsukune really wanted to instruct her to stop talking, since every word she spoke sent needles of pain into his skull, but opted for a more polite solution. "You should stay in the shed, Tobaki, and keep the door closed. We don't know if the curse can be passed on, nor do we know what the witches will do to you next if they find out you survived."

"I'm staying with her," Keito insisted.

Tsukune gave her a thumbs-up. "Sure! You go ahead." Having Keito volunteer to quarantine herself was probably the nicest thing she had ever done for him.

"Stupid witches and their lame hexes," Tobaki mumbled as she wriggled toward the shack behind the group, "I'll bet this like, HALVES most of my stats. And I can't wear glasses like this! What if someone needs me to do treasurer work?"

"Then they'll just have to manage basic math all by themselves," Keito reassured her, following the corrosive trail of slime that the yochlol left behind her, "from this point onward, you're on sick leave!"

Tsukune held his stomach as the demon left, finally appreciating some of Ranma's fear for the Committee's treasurer. Even without having to fight her, merely being around her true form was an ordeal that someone of his constitution found exhausting.

"So, now that that's over, can we get back to where, when, and how Moka saw Ranma's thing?" Kana asked, obviously irritated that they had gotten sidetracked from the topic.

"Kana! Tobaki was just CURSED by a witch who was growing an army of plant monsters and probably wants us all killed! Don't you think we have more important things to worry about right now?" Moka demanded, red in the face from embarrassment and indignation.

"Not really, no," Kana said bluntly.

"We wouldn't want to just drop all the sexual tension just because we have legitimate duties here," Yukari said eagerly.

There was a brief rustling noise before Mizore's face emerged from a nearby cluster of sunflowers, looking annoyed. "Hurry up. I'm supposed to be spying on Keito right now."

Moka looked desperately to Tsukune for help, but the young human just seemed to stare off into the sunflower field, seemingly oblivious to the argument.

She couldn't help but notice, though, that he was close enough to easily overhear it, and didn't seem to be leaving. No doubt he was rather curious himself - if not slightly worried - about Moka having seen Ranma naked.

"Look, it was all Kurumu's idea, all right?" Moka said awkwardly.

"Kurumu was in on this too?" Yukari asked, her eyes gleaming, "that is HOT."

"We were just testing his curse! That's all! There wasn't anything... you know, weird about it!" Moka protested.

"There's nothing weird about asking a friend to show you his junk?" Kana asked, her voice carrying as much scorn as her words.

"Er... well, technically we didn't ask..." Moka admitted against the advice of Evil Moka, who was repeating the words _'Stop talking stop talking stop talking'_ over and over again.

"Didn't we just learn not to do stuff like that yesterday?" Mizore asked Tsukune, who continued to wait patiently for Kouma while pretending like he couldn't hear a thing.

Kana grit her teeth as she turned around. "I would expect this from a succubus, virgin or no, but I didn't realize vampires were such PERVERTS."

The word struck her like an arrow to the chest, right before it more literally struck her like an arrow to the chest via a sonic burst that nearly staggered her.

Tsukune rolled his eyes and turned around, finally deciding that the topic had gone on long enough. "All right, just calm down. None of us had seen a curse like that before Ranma revealed it to us, right? Obviously Kurumu went too far in examining it, but they didn't have any strange intentions. Let it go."

Moka sighed in relief as Kana's expression wilted slightly.

"Besides, there's no real reason why you can't use the same excuse," Yukari pointed out, grinning.

Kana straightened noticeably, although she tried to keep her expression stoic. Mizore raised an eyebrow and slowly slipped back into the sunflowers.

"Sure. Whatever. In any case, we have to be on our guard for more activity from the witches. Kana, can you stun birds with your voice?" Tsukune asked.

The siren nodded wordlessly.

"Then make sure to keep a watch out for birds and other small animals. If you see one knock it out immediately, but don't get close to it," Tsukune instructed, "I don't like the idea of sonic-blasting the local wildlife on sight, but we can't risk our own lives to spare the birds."

Kana nodded again while Yukari shrugged.

"Well, if Moka doesn't have any more sexy stories, I might as well do a tarot reading," the young witch said, turning around, "also, I want to get my things out of the shack so that Tobaki doesn't get her bodily gunk all over them."

"It wasn't a sexy story!" Moka claimed, her cheeks reddening again, "he was really mad about it, too!"

Tsukune went back to staring at the sunflower field. "Well, there goes my teaching agenda for the day. What's taking Kouma so long?"

* * *

"So, what now, ladies?" asked the disembodied voice of the magic cat, "do you want to give up and just talk to the human, or maybe launch another ill-fated attack that will further tip your hand and precipitate your savage beating and removal from your precious knoll?"

"As you were responsible for one of those 'ill-fated attacks', you should not be so cocky, feline," Oyakata snapped.

"Hey, whatever hag. Doesn't make any difference to me. Well, maybe a little bit, since there's an outside chance that the invaders might free me from the book. But other than that, I already blew my shot at freedom, so who cares?"

Ruby gulped. "My lady, should we not consider negotiating now? We've already attacked them, and they must know we're here..."

"NO!" Oyakata snapped, her eyes narrowing at her protege. "We still have options. We yet have many cards to play, Ruby. I will NOT approach a human in weakness!"

The older witch stomped over to the bookcase, and then seized the summoning book. "If we run short on crows, we will use others as our eyes and ears!" she snarled, grabbing ahold of each cover and shaking it as she held it open.

"Whoa! Hey, watch it!" the magical beast complained as it tumbled out of the book, its body trailing a cloud of inky darkness, "don't do that without all the ritualistic mumbo-jumbo! You're breaking my mystique!"

Oyakata slammed the book shut. "Ruby! Bind the cat. It will serve as your familiar and bodyguard, and if it dies in service to you, we are no worse off."

"Okay, fine, but this is the last time I'm dying for you morons," the black feline grumbled as it walked up to Ruby.

Ruby knelt before the cat awkwardly, circling the head of her wand over it. "And what is my task, my lady?"

"The witch must be approached before the group either attacks us or decide to leave to avoid further harm," Oyakata explained, "if we can learn of her situation, it may provide an effective method of attacking the human or his allies."

"Well, you already assaulted her campground with carnivorous plants, tried to kill her friend and then accidentally hit a different one with a horrible, deadly curse. Yeah, this'll go real well," said the feline, its ears flattening irritably against its head as Ruby slowly formed a telepathic bond.

The younger witch cringed as she connected with the creature's mind and soul. In the past she had only formed bonds with crows, and before that mice and pigeons as practice. Crows were relatively intelligent birds, but the most she ever felt from them when forming a proper bond was an excited curiosity or a nervous trepidation.

The magical beast was quite intelligent in absolute terms, and it understood its role relative to the witches very well. As Ruby reached out to touch its mind she felt only contempt, disgust, and a brooding hatred that was being suppressed by a bitter resignation.

As she finished the bonding ritual, Ruby shuddered at the feelings polluting her mind. It made her feel... dirty. Corrupted. As if she should feel the same things toward herself.

"Hurry, Ruby. We don't know how the group will respond, but every moment the human boy pollutes our knoll is another indignity heaped upon the natural world by those scum. Find the witch and bring her back here with all haste. Persuade her if you can, but remember that the human may have swayed her. You may need to use force."

"Of course, my lady. I will return with our sister witch in tow," Ruby promised.

"And I'll probably return in a shadowstream to be injected right back into your damn book, you filthy hag," the feline added, "so, you know, look forward to that."

"I shall," the crone said curtly, "now begone!"

* * *

As Ruby stepped out of the earthen dwelling that served as the witch's lair, she glanced back at the dark feline following in her footsteps. It was obviously trying to stay in her shadow, although Ruby didn't know if this was because of some sensitivity to light or if it afforded the creature some convenient ability. For all she knew, it might just not like the temperature in the sun; all she really knew about the beast was that Oyakata had trapped it in one of her ancient tomes and bound it with the book's magic, and that it seemed to have a distinct hatred of witches and an obvious yearning to be free.

Not really qualities you wanted in a familiar, she had to admit.

"So, do you have a name?" Ruby asked suddenly as she started walking through the sunflower fields.

"What do you care?" the cat asked back, "don't get attached, twerp; there isn't much chance of EITHER of us getting out of this alive, me much less than you. And even if I DID, as soon as the crone decides I've done enough, I'm out."

Ruby winced from the tirade, trying to think of some topic for conversation that might lighten the cat's mood and maybe stem the non-stop flow of bitter fury seeping into her thoughts.

She could only really think of one topic, though. "Hey, do you... really think witches are just as bad as humans?" Ruby asked the question nervously, as if afraid of the answer.

"I don't know; I've never been attacked or imprisoned by a human," the feline said evenly, "but on an educated guess, I'd say witches are much, much worse."

Ruby's expression firmed. "That's just your personal experience. Humans spread across the globe, devastating the Earth for their own benefit and leaving ruin in their wake."

"Wow, yeah, who ever heard of someone exploiting the environment for themselves?" the magic beast said with distinct sarcasm, its tail swatting a sunflower stem for emphasis. "You know what these things are. You planted them, didn't you? Don't act like you're a hapless victim, here."

Ruby bit her lip, caught flat-footed by having the cat acknowledge the sunflowers. "This is... a necessary measure for dealing with the humans. We needed weapons-"

"To defend your property from them. Same excuse they use to justify their own fighting," the feline said, its eye locking onto a dead garigari that lay in a smoking heap next to a small circle of scorched sunflowers, "what's the difference?"

Ruby"s eyes narrowed. "Humans were responsible for the death of my parents."

"That's just your personal experience," the shadow cat said mockingly, imitating Ruby's voice, "I'd say I was sorry for your loss, but I wouldn't mean it. The world is better off without two more witches, and it'll be better still when the hag gets you both killed."

Ruby felt her blood turn to ice at the sentiment, and she stopped short as her heart seemed to seize up for a moment. Nobody had ever expressed... SATISFACTION at her misfortune before. The cold smugness in the feline's words were amplified tenfold in Ruby's mind from the telepathic link, assuring her of his blunt honesty in assuming that her entire race was a useless waste of flesh. She didn't like the feeling one bit.

"That's enough ch-chatting," Ruby said coldly, her voice cracking only slightly, "we have to find my sister witch q-quickly." It wasn't that she was in any way afraid of the magic beast, who literally could not harm her on account of their bond, but sharing a mental link with a creature that was literally willing you to drop dead telepathically was rather emotionally trying for the teenage witch.

"Sure thing. If I'm lucky she'll get trampled somehow and we'll be rid of THREE witches," the feline said humorlessly as it bounded ahead through the sunflowers.

Ruby followed stiffly, her faith in her mission dented ever so slightly.

* * *

"Well, THAT'S weird..."

Yukari was by herself in a small clearing, seated in front of an old stump of a tree that provided the closest thing she could find to a good table.

She realized that she shouldn't have been so far from the camp and the other students of Youkai Academy, most of whom were better suited fending off hostile sentries, but Yukari always much preferred silence and isolation when doing her tarot readings. In most situations she was all too happy to heap scientific knowledge and stray trivia on her companions, but tarot readings were intricate rituals of pure arcana. They defied any attempt at formula in a perverse bias toward crude intuition and poorly-understood rites, and Yukari hated having to answer questions about her readings to others. Her friends were used to receiving complex and specific explanations from her, and it would have felt awkward and embarrassing to try to explain the exceptionally anti-intuitive and ritualistic practice when they inevitably asked questions.

"The tower... and justice?" Yukari had two cards set aside, with another pair below it, one of them face down.

She flipped over the card that was face-down.

"The emperor and death," the young witch murmured, placing the deck of remaining cards to her side.

A battle. And a trap. That much she could figure out easily enough. And the tower definitely represented the mysterious witches of the knoll.

The curious thing was that the trap was not associated with the witches.

Her best guess was that she was reading an eventual showdown with the witches, which required all the foresight of an earthworm to predict. That the cards hinted at a battle was good, or at least the best outcome that could be expected. The Protection Committee had weathered the clumsy defenses of the witches so far, and a direct confrontation was almost certainly to their advantage. Moreso since her cards revealed nothing amiss with the tower.

But then who or what was the emperor?

"Maybe if I try a different context," Yukari mumbled as she picked up the cards one by one, "maybe I should do a reading on Senpai. Or Tsukune specifically."

The rustle of shifting flowers reached her ear without being accompanied by a breeze.

Yukari, already feeling on edge and acutely aware of her vulnerability, whirled around with her wand in one hand and a card in the other, ready to fight or flee depending on the circumstances.

She was fairly relieved when a black cat slipped through the thick sunflower stems, padding slowly toward her.

"Oh. Just a cat," she mumbled, letting her arms drop. Given how many garigari plants the Committee had destroyed, it wasn't surprising that some of the local wildlife were starting to wander back in already.

"Seriously? NOW you guys decide to drop your guard? Feh," the cat said in disgust as it sat down.

Yukari promptly raised her weapons again. "Okay. Talking cat. Didn't see that coming," the young witch admitted, her brain kicking into high gear as she tried to quickly piece together the link between the cat, it's annoyed statement, and the witches.

She needn't have bothered. Most of the rustling from the sunflowers continued, and Yukari's eyes widened as she saw a humanoid figure emerge from the giant flowers.

"Humanoid" being a rather crude descriptor. To most people besides Yukari, the girl would have come off as an oddly dressed teenage human, one who had obviously dove head-first into her school's local Goth clique and taken it to an extreme that bordered on cosplaying. To Yukari, though, the girl wearing dark makeup, tattered clothes, and holding a crescent-headed scepter was obviously a witch. Her raven black hair was tied into two ponytails that stuck out on either side of her head, and her complexion was a smooth ivory.

It was her eyes, though, that made Yukari lower her weapons, despite every scrap of logic helpfully pointing out the tremendous odds that this girl was an enemy and currently meant to attack her. Hopeful, soulful eyes completely devoid of deceit and malevolence and stared at Yukari with joy and relief.

As the two witches stared at each other, the magic beast coughed. "I don't want to interrupt this touching moment of non-violence, but don't we have a job to do here?"

The sarcasm broke Yukari out of her reverie, and she took a step back with her card hand drawn to the side, ready to attack. "Who are you? Are you one of the witches that attacked Tobaki?"

"I am Ruby, one of the witches living here on Witch's Knoll," the teenager confirmed, "as for the attack on... Tobaki, was it? There is much to discuss. What is your name, Sister?"

"I'm Sendo Yukari. I am the intelligence officer of the Youkai Academy Protection Committee," Yukari said, standing up straight to her underwhelming height, "Miss Ruby, are you or one of your associates responsible for the attacks on the Committee?"

"Yes, we are," Ruby said bluntly, "your... Committee entered our territory disguised as humans, and set about destroying our garigari plants. My lady felt it would best to drive off or destroy intruders rather than hold the garigaris back... but then they accomplished neither."

Yukari felt a pang of annoyance at the explanation, although it was exactly as she had predicted at the time. "You were going to kill us for trespassing? That's ridiculous! And what's with all those garigaris? You have a small army of them here! Well, HAD a small army, anyway."

"We were not going to kill YOU, Yukari," Ruby said, shaking her head, "I was to whisk you away during the battle, but it turned against us so quickly that it wasn't possible. The witches of the knoll protect their own. And that is why we want you to join us."

Yukari looked alarmed at the offer. "Me? Join you? Why would I do that?"

"You are a witch, same as me and my lady," Ruby explained, "and our mission is to save Witch's Knoll from the hateful humans that threaten it!"

Yukari furrowed her brow. "I can't really join you just because we're the same species. Don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to defend your territory against invaders and all, but I don't really..." she trailed off. "Wait. Humans threaten Witch's Knoll? What are you talking about?" The only human she was aware of with any plans involving the knoll was Tsukune, and those plans were almost entirely benign.

"Even now, the humans plot to destroy our home and push us further into the wilderness, their cities spreading like plague!" Ruby said, clutching her wand tightly as she grimaced. "You travel with one. We have seen this. He uses your talents for his own plots, and when he is done with you he will throw you away. That is the nature of humans, and we seek to save you from him."

"Uh-huh..." Yukari was skeptical, to say the least, "well, that's... nice of you? I guess? But I'm a little less concerned with Tsukune and more concerned with the plant army thing. Have we covered that yet?"

"You SHOULD be concerned," Ruby insisted, "humans and witches are too different to ever co-exist! I want to help you realize that before you come to harm!"

"Too... different, you say. Really," Yukari mumbled, unconvinced. Compared to most of the monsters she had met at Youkai Academy, the differences between her and Tsukune seemed completely trivial.

Really, it wasn't that Yukari didn't feel any kinship with the girl or sympathy for someone who might be forced out of their home, but it was difficult to dismiss their actions toward the Committee as being justified by some vague threat of relocation. She wanted to trust Ruby, who clearly believed in the things she was saying, but it seemed fairly obvious that she was regurgitating someone else's complaints rather than giving her own.

"I will introduce you to Lady Oyakata," Ruby said, as if the matter had been decided, "she will teach you and take care of you from now on. She'll show you what the humans have done to us!"

"All right, let's back up just a smidge, here," Yukari said flatly, raising her palms in front of her, "this 'Oyakata' sounds a little too much like some wacky death cult leader, so rather than me joining your little Kool-aid party, why don't we discuss things HERE, NOW, between you and me?"

Ruby frowned, "My lady is concerned that you might have been swayed by the human-"

"And you've obviously been swayed by this other witch, so let's leave both of them out of this," Yukari said firmly, sitting down on the tree stump, "starting at the beginning: what, exactly, are the humans planning to do with Witch's Knoll?"

Ruby felt nervous about going against Oyakata's plans, but felt that so long as Yukari was willing to listen to her, it was not yet necessary to use force. "There is a human organization that seeks to destroy the knoll and turn it into a garbage dump."

"Ah. And you don't like that, I gather?" Yukari asked, crossing her legs as she leaned back onto her hands.

"For years we've tolerated living near humans; the pollution, the frequent intruders, people who drive down the road with their music playing full blast and their windows down..."

"Ugh, yeah, that IS the worst," Yukari agreed.

Ruby nodded. "But then, last spring, we learned that some... company had purchased our land! And that they intend to replace this refuge of ours with a dump to store the trash from their city!"

Yukari nodded slowly. "Ah, okay. I can see why you'd be upset over that," she reasoned, "quick question, though: do the humans know you're HERE?"

Ruby was silent for a few seconds. "No. Why?" she finally said, as if she couldn't imagine why it would matter.

"Well, it seems to me that you're angry at the humans for not taking your feelings into account, but so long as they don't know you exist, that's literally impossible for them," Yukari pointed out, "I'm not saying that they'd stop if they realized you existed, but they DO have laws and stuff to handle things like indigenous land and squatter's rights and so forth. If you do your best to deceive them, you can't really hate them for falling for it."

"But... But they're going to demolish the knoll!" Ruby cried, clutching her wand in both hands, "think of the environment!"

"Well, okay, sure, there's that, but destroying a bunch of plants and dumb animals is a lot different than pushing a sentient being out of their home," Yukari explained as she leaned forward, gesturing with her wand at the surrounding sunflowers.

"So you think it's okay to just wipe out huge swathes of land and hundreds of native beasts for your own purposes?" Ruby asked coldly.

"Didn't you?" the shadow cat asked suddenly, "you planted the garigaris and the... 'sunflowers'. Those aren't exactly easy on the native ecosystem."

Ruby's eyes widened, and a few droplets of sweat started to bead on her forehead.

"Ah. Nevermind, just ignore me," the cat said, shaking it's head, "sorry, I didn't mean to contribute to a diplomatic solution. I'm still hoping everyone dies."

Yukari sweatdropped as she pointed at the magic beast. "Backup familiar?"

"The spider girl and her friend ate all my crows," Ruby said bitterly.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Though it still doesn't justify curses," Yukari said, "so, let's step away from what the humans are doing to you. What were you planning to do to THEM?"

Ruby's expression turned to one of grim satisfaction. "I cannot reveal all the details before you have agreed to help. However, I can say that we have created an army to remove the humans from the source. Where they had sought to destroy the knoll and replace it with their filth, we will instead wipe clean their city, and return it to its verdant natural state!"

Yukari's wand almost slipped from her fingers as they threatened to go numb. "Wha... Yo... Uhn?"

"That's right! The greedy, egoistic scum that threatens the knoll will be wiped out to the last! The massacre will be on such a scale that they will never think to return! This place will become a haven for witches! A new paradise for us and all those that would live in peace alongside us!"

"Yup. So that's the plan," the shadow cat said blithely, "exterminate all the humans in a ten kilometer radius and desperately hope that the dominant species has absolutely no means of reprisal. What say you, newbie?"

Yukari gulped loudly. "I think... GENOCIDE is a bit extreme a retaliation for a property dispute," she said nervously, for the first time realizing just how unhinged this girl was, "we're not talking about wiping out a termite colony, here. Have you considered starting smaller? Maybe fending off the actual humans that threaten the knoll? It wouldn't take many man-eating plants to put a serious dent in a construction schedule!"

Ruby snorted. "It IS the same as wiping out pests. But Yukari, we must hurry." The older witch stepped forward and held out her hand for Yukari to take. "Come with me. Meet my lady, and decide for yourself if you still have questions. We have to move, before the other minions of that human find us."

"Oh, it's too late for that," the magical beast said.

Ruby nodded to Yukari. "Yes, as he said, it's... wait, what?"

A rustling of sunflowers was the only other warning Ruby got before she was tackled to the ground and pinned by three hundred pounds of irate hellhound.

"AAAAAAH!" Ruby screamed and tried to aim her wand arm, but Kouma simply slammed a paw down on her forearm while placing the other one none-too-tenderly on the teenage witch's collarbone. "Why didn't you warn me?"

"You didn't ask," the feline said as it sat on its haunches next to the potential mauling, "he was stalking us for a while, but couldn't get too close because of his size. He's not really built for stealth, so I noticed right away."

"Most of my familiars would feel a SLIGHT sense of urgency and distress at being stalked by a warhound!" Ruby cried.

"Yeah, it took a lot of effort not to tip you off."

Kouma quickly tired of the shouting and put more weight on his front legs, instantly causing Ruby to seize up. "All right, emo freak, stop with the yelling," he growled, his oven-hot breath forcing Ruby to squeeze her eyes shut, "and by the way, I'm a hellhound. Just FYI. Because if you get it wrong again I'll flambe your face."

"Oh no, my master," the cat deadpanned, making a clawing motion at Kouma's leg, "don't worry, I'll save you."

"Kouma, be careful," Yukari demanded, frowning at the hellhound, "and keep your temper in check. We're NOT going to hurt her, got it?"

"Sure, whatever," the hellhound grumbled as he raised his head to the sky, a bright glow building within his maw.

_Fwoomph!_ A moment later he shot a small, bright ball of flame into the air, and Kouma watched it arc upward and then fizzle out in the sky like a firework.

"What was that?" Yukari asked.

"Signal flare. Aono's idea," Kouma said conversationally, "he's really been stepping up into the whole 'Captain' thing, you know? I hardly even resent being forced into this anymore."

"You foul beast! You're just a tool of the humans!" Ruby suddenly shouted, beating her free hand against Kouma's neck, "let me go!"

"Settle down before you lose that arm," Kouma threatened, baring his unnaturally sharp teeth, "you should be thankful to the humans. If it weren't for them inventing a system for judging criminals and one of them imposing it on me specifically, I would have torn out your throat by now for all the trouble you've caused."

"Kouma, stop! I'm sure she's scared enough!" Yukari complained, "anyway, how much did you overhear?"

"I got close enough just in time to hear the mass murder plans. Though how they think they're going to do THAT with a bunch of garigaris is beyond me," Kouma scoffed.

"Hah! You know nothing of our plans! We have much worse tools at our disposal than the garigaris!" Ruby shouted defiantly.

Yukari and Kouma stared down at her, raising their eyebrows. Ruby promptly slapped a hand over her mouth.

On the sidelines, mostly forgotten by the others, the shadow cat patiently awaited the outcome of this latest debacle. Though it was pleased that it seemed to be going more or less as it predicted, and doubly pleased that it hadn't been killed yet, it was disappointed that the whole showdown had ended so anticlimactically, without any fighting at all. Given that its fate was still tied to Oyakata's cursed tome, regardless of what happened, it had hoped to at least see a good battle. Ideally one that ended with its "master" dying.

The magic beast yawned, and happened to glance up at a nearby willow tree just as a crow landed on it.

'Well, looks like someone found some more crows,' the shadow cat thought, smirking, 'maybe I'll get to see a fight after all.'

"So, do want to spill to us, or do you really want to wait for the interrogation?" Kouma asked, sitting down on top of Ruby's legs while still holding her chest and arm down, "it might save you a lot of dignity to tell me rather than some human kid, right?" he reasoned.

"No! Never! I'll never betray my lady!" Ruby shouted.

"You won't have to," Yukari said firmly, "we'll return and confront her, and then settle this..."

She trailed off as she heard the sound of shifting dirt, along with a curious creaking sound. Kouma heard it too, and his ears perked up as he glanced around.

_Thoom!_ A vine thicker than Yukari's leg burst from the ground nearby, shooting toward Kouma and spearing the hellhound in the side.

"URAAAAUGH!" Jumping to his feet, the hellhound retaliated with a jet of flame that nearly disintegrated the vine on the spot, all the way to the dirt it had emerged from.

This did, however, relieve the pressure from Ruby's body, and the teenage witch immediately swiped her wand at Kouma's flank.

"Ow! Hey!" The wound was minor, barely breaking skin, but a dark, cloying mist seemed to cling to the wound, generating a painful burning sensation that was quite unfamiliar to a creature used to living among lava flows.

As Kouma started instinctively gnawing at the wound, Ruby rolled out from under him and scrambled to her feet, coming face-to-face with Yukari.

"Look, Ruby, don't do this. I don't want to have to fight you," Yukari said grimly, holding up her wand, "and I REALLY don't want the mutt or Chopper to have to fight you. So just back down, all right?"

"You think all the suffering I've been through at the hand of the human race can be pushed aside so easily, Yukari?" Ruby asked, raising her wand in front of her. Three pairs of wings immediately sprouted from her back, stretching blade-tipped, black feathers over her shoulders and around her waist.

"No, I think that your suffering doesn't justify the destruction of an entire CITY," Yukari pointed out, "I also think that you don't really stand a chance alone against me and Gamaroshi."

"Oh, but she isn't alone," taunted a rough, unpleasant voice that boomed over the field. "Ruby was taking too long, and I saw the fireball in the sky, so I came to ensure the safety of my protege."

Kouma snorted as he licked his fur over his flank clean, the irritation having finally subsided. "I knew that vine didn't come from the goth. We've got another bogey."

Both he and Yukari turned as a figure stepped into view from behind the nearby tree. She was very old, with pointed teeth and skin that looked like it was stretched taut over her face like a rubber mask. Her back was slightly stooped, and she wore a robe and hood of tattered linens filthy with dirt, stains, and crow feathers.

Yukari was taking the measure of this new arrival when Ruby suddenly flapped her wings, releasing a cloud of feathers that blew over her face like a cloud of dust and briefly obscured her vision.

Yukari concentrated with her wand and then swept the heart-topped implement in front of her, forcing the feathers away with a telekinetic bubble that pushed at the offending debris.

Alas, when her vision was clear again, Yukari found that Ruby was not in front of her and that she had a fan of razor-edged feathers held over her shoulder, right next to her neck.

"I'm sorry it had to go like this, Yukari," Ruby said sadly, seizing the younger witch from behind by the shoulder, "I really do want to be friends, but we can't let you interfere with our plans."

Oyakata chuckled as Kouma growled. "Well done, Ruby. It seems you couldn't convince her to come with us of her own volition, but there will be time to teach her the virtues of our cause," the crone said, her hand caressing a large book that was held at her side in a leather holder.

Then she gazed at Kouma, her mouth breaking into a crooked smile. "And what about you, hound? Do you truly mean to side with humans, our enemies? You are not a witch, but neither are you one of those worthless sacks of meat and ignorance. You do not have to follow the orders of that fool any longer."

"Come again?" Kouma asked, his eyes narrowing as he spread his legs, as if preparing to pounce.

"The humans have lied to you. Tricked you into subservience. It is wrong for a monster to serve one of their kind. It is... unnatural. Join us, and we will unmake their despicable, filthy civilization, and return this land to how it was meant to be."

Kouma was silent for several tense seconds, and cast a glance back at Yukari, who was still being held at wing-point. Then the hellhound pushed himself up onto his hind legs as a brief wall of flame swept over him.

When it subsided a split second later, Kouma was in his human form, and he directed a sneer at the elderly witch as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, that's quite presumptuous of you, isn't it? Who says humans are MY enemy?"

Oyakata raised an eyebrow. "Humans and monsters are enemies. It is-"

"It is a load of crap that dolts like you spout off to make the world fit into your stupid, shallow worldview," Kouma interrupted, clenching his teeth. He found it much easier to speak with a human throat and tongue, which was why he made the switch. "You think all monsters are the same? Some of us have more in common with the humans than we do our fellow monsters. Don't put me in the same category as you, hag."

"You know, I'm not usually a fan of dogs, but I LIKE this guy," said the shadow cat as it padded up next to Ruby.

Kouma shrugged with a smirk on his face, seeing the witch's displeased expression. "It just so happens that humans are my livelihood. And even if they weren't, I'd still prefer their company to a couple of embittered gardeners quietly plotting a massacre in some backwater pit of weeds. So you can take your offer straight to Hell when I send you there in a few minutes."

Oyakata sighed, clearly unmoved by Kouma's refusal. "So you are too corrupt to stand with us. Very unfortunate. But don't be so quick to threaten me, dog," She pointed at Ruby and Yukari, "we'll be taking your companion with us. She deserves better than exploitation at the hand of some human fool."

"I'm not going anywhere!" Yukari snapped angrily, "I don't want anything to do with your crazy plot!"

"You will come to see for yourself that we are correct," Ruby insisted, "I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Yukari. If the human learns of our plans, he might alert the other humans. I'm sorry it has to be like this," the teenage witch seemed genuine in her remorse, which Yukari somehow managed to find comforting despite the fan of spikes being held at her throat.

"I'm sorry it has to be like this, too," said a new voice as Ruby felt her hair seized from behind, "I was really hoping I could get an hour or two to myself!"

Ruby was about to use her wings to attack whoever was behind her, but hesitated when she noticed a delicate, feminine hand at her neck... and the three-inch nails that extended from its fingers.

Kouma glanced behind him and Oyakata scowled as Kurumu seized Ruby from behind. The succubus had her light blue hair down for a change, and it was also clearly damp judging by how it was clinging to her shoulders.

"Took you long enough," Kouma grumbled as he took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

"I was washing my hair!" Kurumu complained, causing Ruby to wince, "do you know how long it took me to find a decent public restroom? Plus I had to land where no one could see me and walk there! You're lucky I happened to hear people talking about some kind of fireworks test!"

"There's a pond, like, THIRTY meters from the camp," Kouma pointed out as he put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it up.

"I'm not washing up in that filthy bog! I may be a monster, but I'm not a pig!"

"ENOUGH!" Oyakata suddenly roared, raising her arms as vine tendrils started creeping up from the Earth all around her. "Your prattling wears thin, monsters! If you imbeciles would side with the humans against us, then so be it! I'll destroy you along with them!"

All at once, vines burst from the ground like missiles, twisting and curling through the air with alarming speed.

Kouma took an idle drag off of his cigarette as he spread his arms apart, and then clapped them together.

_BWOOM!_ A fireball exploded between his palms, instantly scorching the grass underneath and around him. Those vines on course for the hellhound slowed rapidly in their growth as they withered and hardened from the heat, and when they reached Kouma's skin a few seconds later, the tips instantly caught flame rather than piercing flesh.

Several vines arced around to attack Kurumu, but they fared no better. Yukari shouldered her way free from Ruby's grasp and tossed a handful of her cards, the enchanted projectiles severing the tendrils near their emergence point and causing the entire lengths to go slack.

"You won't get away from us!" Yukari declared, pointing her wand at Oyakata, "we have you outgunned, and your only ally isn't going to help you!"

"Ruby will not be defeated so easily," Oyakata sneered.

"Actually, I was talking about the cat," Yukari explained, pointing to the magical beast as it watched lazily from the shade, "Ruby's more of a minion, really."

"Don't underestimate me!" said minion shouted, suddenly standing up straight and smirking behind her at Kurumu. "You think I'm not willing to die for our cause? If you want to stop me, you'll have to kill me!"

_Thwack!_ Kurumu smashed a fist into the back of Ruby's head and the witch crumpled instantly, her eyes swirling.

"Kouma, I'm taking Yukari and this one back to camp," Kurumu said, hoisting the unconscious girl over her shoulder, "the hag looks more lively, so could you beat some sense into her and bring her along when you're done?"

"Sure, whatever," Kouma said dismissively, puffing on his cigarette, "the geriatric's mine."

"You won't get away!" Oyakata shouted, thrusting her palms forward as more vine started emerging from the ground all around her.

Many of the tendrils again snaked toward Kouma, but Kurumu saw some more poking up through the ground behind him, and she took a mighty leap into the air and spread her wings. As she expected, the vines burst from the dirt and started climbing up toward her feet, but she had soon lifted high enough that the vines sagged back to the Earth helplessly. Yukari dashed along underneath her, keeping her cards at the ready in case she needed a quick escape or distraction, but it seemed that all attention had been focused on securing Ruby, and she disappeared into the clustered sunflowers without difficulty.

"You know, I didn't want to harm any of you," Oyakata said wearily as Kouma swatted and tore at the vines that surrounded him, "no one but the human. It's sad that it's come to this."

"Hraugh!" Kouma tore a vine apart that sought to bind his arms, the heat building around him and rapidly sapping the moisture from the offending plants. "And just what did Aono do to you? He's not responsible for your problems!"

"All humans must bear responsibility for their race's sins!" the crone insisted, pulling up a book from her hip. It sprung open, and a verdant glow accompanied by a dark mist flowed upward from the pages.

"That's not how it works, hag! I would know!" Kouma took a heavy puff of his cigarette, then dashed forward, rapidly closing the distance between him and the elder witch.

Oyakata seemed to disintegrate before his eyes, turning into leaves while her cloak unwove itself and dissolved into the wind. By the time he landed in a crouch where the hag had stood, there was nothing there but a whirlwind of dried leaves.

"I do not want to waste much of my power on you, hound, so I will refrain from summoning my sleeping soldiers just yet. I have a more... fitting punishment for you, since you so enjoy servitude," cackled Oyakata's voice, and despite his good hearing Kouma couldn't make out the source.

Spitting out his cig, Kouma reverted to his hellhound form as a wave of fire briefly washed over him. He immediately set his nose to the ground, hoping that the witch's smell would lead him to her.

_Crack! Snap!_ His sense of hearing, however, was alerted to a much more pressing concern as the trees immediately surrounding the clearing started to move, tearing their roots from the ground as the branches twisted and wrenched themselves into gangly claws.

"Seriously? Tree-men? Against a fire-breather? And you say humans are bad for the environment?" Kouma growled, huffing sparks as he walked up to the nearest summoned creature.

It immediately stretched its gnarled talon toward the hellhound as its roots snaked free of the ragged hole in the Earth that it had escaped from.

_Chomp! Fwoosh!_ Kouma bit into the proffered limb, and it promptly burst into flames around his teeth, running over the length of the branch as lethally hot saliva spattered onto the roots below.

_Creeeeeak..._ Another tree behind him crawled busily across the dry leaves on roots that scuttled like an insect's legs.

_Crack!_ Kouma ripped the branch free of his current opponent, and then spat it out in front of the other one, the flames catching on the tree's roots.

Then Kouma jumped up and dug his claws into the trunk, pulling his large black body up into the boughs.

The tree responded by wrapping its branches around the hellhound as its partner slowly lumbered closer.

"This is hardly even fair. Even the crows would have been a greater challenge," Kouma taunted, his eyes flaring red as his fur stood up all over his body and flickering embers started flaring all around him.

"Wood is for BURNING!" _BWOOM!_

A ring of flame exploded from Kouma's body like a nova, blasting the branches to scorched splinters and cracking open the trunk of the tree. The summoned creature released a low moan as it shuddered, and Kouma fell from its charred branches as the arboreal beast lost hold of its recently granted consciousness.

As the first tree crashed to the ground, Kouma jumped away and started circling the second one, which kept staggering since its roots were already halfway burned down to stumps.

Kouma was hardly one to wait for a foe to fall over when he could hasten the process, and the hellhound leapt toward the stumbling tree, his footsteps leaving small bursts of fire behind him.

As he picked up speed, fire swirled around his body, and when he jumped his form resembled a burning comet as it rocketed over the ground toward the shambling foliage.

_KWABOOOM!_ The tree was lifted clear off its roots, and Kouma clung to the trunk as it fell backward, trailing smoke before slamming hard into the ground. Seared leaves fell like winter snow, and fiery branches flew through the air in all directions.

"Ha! Done already!" Kouma cheered as he stood up atop the dying tree-beast. "I hope that was just some diversion, crone, because if it wasn't..."

He trailed off. "Actually, if it was then I might be in trouble. This was a pretty good diversion."

_Crack!_ The trunk beneath him split open, and though he was about to jump off, Kouma hesitated when he saw something pushing its way through the burning wood.

At first Kouma thought it might be the witch herself, but as the scorched bark broke away, he saw that it was just a rather large book.

Before he could really reflect on that fact, the book snapped open, and Kouma's eyes widened as several rings of spiralling runes and arcane symbols instantly appeared in front of him.

The hellhound backed away immediately, or at least he tried to. Even as he pulled his head back, however, a powerful suction started drawing him in, dragging him toward the yellowed pages of the tome.

"Hey... Hey! Quit it! What is this?" Kouma snarled as his nose was forced closer and closer to the book, against the mighty exertions of his body. He tried to summon fire, but the heat too seemed to get drawn into the vortex, with no ill effect for the strange tome.

"GAH!" The moment his nose touched the paper, Kouma's body lurched forward, being sucked completely into the rotating magic circle that flickered above the pages. His scream was lost in moments, and in two seconds, the end of his tail vanished between the pages of the magical tome.

_Thump!_ The book slammed shut, blowing out a wave of ashes from the tree it rested on.

"Poor, deluded creature," Oyakata cackled, her bent, hooded figure fading into view amongst the flaming debris, "your life is mine, now."

"What the hell is this?" demanded Kouma's voice, muffled by the book but still managing to express an appropriate level of fury.

"This is a special tome of the witches, the book of fur and talon. We use it to deal with the more troublesome beasts that roam our lands," Oyakata explained, hobbling up to the book and picking it up, "I suppose you youngsters might think of it as an old-timey Poke'ball."

"... I'm going to kill you," Kouma said, as if he had just discovered some kind of surprising revelation, "I'm going to chew your legs off, and then light your torso on fire. Then I'm just going to watch your useless stump of a torso burn, Vader-style. Maybe I'll laugh at that point. Haven't decided yet."

Oyakata grinned, actually feeling the book warm up from the hellhound's rage. "Oh, don't be like that. I'll put you to better use than the human did."

"Is that the same book you used on me?" asked the shadow cat, ending its long and silent spectatorship, "as in, the same EXACT one?"

Oyakata cast an irritated glance in the feline's direction, but answered his question. "It is. Unfortunately the tome can only bind a single ani-"

"FREEDOM!" the magic beast shouted, bolting for the sunflowers as fast as its legs could carry it. "So long, assholes! Wa ha ha ha haaa!"

Oyakata frowned as the shadow cat vanished from sight, feeling the book in her hand tremble. "Oh well. It was a good trade."

"The hell it was!" Kouma snarled, the book warming again as he tried to exert his will upon it, "you may have noticed that the cat didn't leap on you and rip your face off as soon as it was free. That is NOT how it's going to go down with us, hag."

"Such hateful spirit!" Oyakata laughed as she turned around heading back to her dwelling, "were you not allied with my enemies, I would have liked to get to know you, hound! But for now, there is preparation to be done. You must be... LEASHED if the coming confrontation is to work out in my favor."

* * *

"I've got a delivery for Captain Tsukune!"

Tsukune, who was eating lunch with Chopper and Kana around the camp site, turned around as he heard Kurumu's voice.

He started choking on his sandwich as he saw that the succubus was carrying a limp teenage girl over her shoulder, ass-end forward, and looking extremely proud of it. Yukari followed behind her, and as he started coughing he managed to notice that she was carrying a wand in each hand now.

As his coughing intensified, Chopper reached over and slapped the human boy in the back, knocking him clean off the log they were sitting on and sending him rolling across the ground for a ways. It got the food out of his windpipe, though.

"What _Cough!_ Who?" Tsukune gasped out as he staggered to his feet.

"This is Ruby, one of the witches that live around here," Yukari said, waving the crescent wand at the unconscious girl, "and our new prisoner." She held out the wand for Tsukune to take.

Chopper and Kana found this far more interesting than lunch, and wordlessly moved to flank their captain.

"Wait, a prisoner? What happened?" Tsukune asked, dusting himself off.

"She tracked me down and tried to convince me to join the witches," Yukari explained, "and then Kouma tracked HER down. And then the OTHER witch saw the signal he used to notify Kurumu, so SHE showed up before Kurumu did..." the younger witch trailed off, "long story short, we kidnapped this girl and left Kouma to kidnap the other one. He should be coming by with the older witch in a few minutes."

"Assuming there's enough left of her to bring," Kurumu said with a snort, placing Ruby down at her feet.

Tsukune frowned. "I don't like that he's fighting her alone. If that witch can melt someone's body from a kilometer away, there's no telling what she's capable of. Kurumu, Kana, can you two fly over to him and back him up, please?"

Kurumu nodded enthusiastically, while Kana silently stretched her arms out while her wings unfolded. Within moments they had both taken to the skies, Kana following Kurumu's lead.

"Tsukune! I got the water, but it..." Moka trailed off as she approached the camp site with a pair of filled buckets, noticing the commotion. "What's wrong? Is that girl hurt?"

"Not too badly, but Kurumu is stronger than she looks," Yukari said as she waved the vampiress over, "should we wake her up now?"

Tsukune scratched his chin. "Is she helpless without that wand?"

Yukari shrugged. "Probably. Or weaker, at least... There are other magic items witches can use, but as a rule, our personal magic implements are the strongest."

"All right, Yukari, back up. Moka, could you hand me that bucket? And Chopper, you stand right behind her," Tsukune ordered as he put down the bucket.

The others were probably expecting him to dump the entire bucket on the witch, but instead he cupped his hands and ladled some water out onto the girl's face.

Ruby squirmed immediately, her eyes slowly fluttering open as she groaned.

When she was cognizant enough to consider anything besides the throbbing pain in the back of her skull, she noticed that she was surrounded. Yukari she recognized immediately, and despite the unpleasant hostage situation they had just experienced together she felt some comfort at the presence of a fellow witch. The other girl was one of Yukari's friends, and for all she knew another human. She scowled and turned her head away.

That just happened to place Tsukune in her line of sight.

"YOU!" Ruby snapped, surging to her feet despite a persisting dizziness, "this is all YOUR fault!"

"Which part?" Tsukune asked, quirking an eyebrow, "capturing you? Intruding on your territory?"

"Selling the land to a municipal company that wants to turn it into landfill," Yukari explained.

"That... isn't my fault at all," he said, looking puzzled.

"Yeah, I know. Nor is it the fault of most of the hundreds of thousands of people she and her teacher are planning to kill," Yukari said grimly, "apparently they have some kind of army that they're going to march onto the city, killing all the humans in the name of nature or something."

Tsukune and Moka looked appropriately horrified at the thought, and Ruby clenched her teeth.

"Your fate is already sealed, human! We cannot be stopped!"

Tsukune felt a surge of anger at the thought of such a thing taking place, but quashed it immediately. Getting mad wouldn't accomplish anything here; they already had Ruby as a prisoner, and the other witch would be defeated soon as well.

"Is it just you two here on the knoll?" Tsukune asked Ruby.

She turned her head away. "I will tell you nothing, human!"

"What kind of army could you have out here?" Tsukune asked, pushing on despite the girl's refusal, "the garigaris could never take an entire city, even if we hadn't devastated their numbers."

Ruby said nothing, refusing to look at the boy.

"Yukari, what do you think?" Tsukune asked, keeping an eye on the older witch as he turned toward the younger one.

"Well, I'm pretty sure we're not looking at any apocalyptic stuff, like opening portals to other planes or anything," Yukari reasoned, "their pacts seem entirely nature-based, so I'd expect that it's some kind of insect plague, plant army, or series of beast packs. Something like that."

Yukari crossed her arms over her chest. "But the question is, where do you hide it? They've obviously been planning this for a while, meaning it's not some kind of one-off mass summoning, you can't feed that many creatures without exposing then normally. Even the garigaris depopulated the knoll and were discovered immediately, and like you said, they could barely take down a police kiosk all together."

Tsukune could see that Ruby was glancing around nervously, looking at everything except for him. He wasn't particularly good at reading people, though, so he couldn't really divulge much from her behavior besides the fact that she was scared. And who wouldn't be, in her position?

"Okay, well, so long as you're here with us, we're not going to harm you. Once your partner is captured, then we'll figure out what to do," Tsukune explained, "until then, though, I'm going to have you stay in the shed. Tobaki and Keito can guard you."

Yukari winced. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No, I'm not, but Tobaki should be willing to listen to me. And I guess Mizore's following them now, so she's also a guard by proxy, I guess," Tsukune reasoned, gesturing to Chopper.

The troll took hold of Ruby's shoulder and hauled the girl to her feet, his strength and size making him look like a giant handling a doll.

"You too, troll? You also obey this human worm?" Ruby asked as she glared up at the bodybuilder.

"He's not a human worm, I think he's the regular kind," Chopper pointed out as he followed Tsukune toward the shed, "what would a human worm even look like?"

Ruby's furious resentment had to give way to make room for some exasperation. "No, that's not... I'm just asking why you would take orders from him. Could you not crush him easily?"

"Yeah, sure. But I lost a bet," Chopper said simply, watching as Tsukune entered the shed ahead of them, "besides, Aono 'aint a bad guy. This Protection Committee thing has actually been kinda fun."

"You have no idea what you're doing! The evil you're abetting!" Ruby protested.

"Hey, you're the one who melted some stranger's body," Chopper mumbled.

As if on cue, the door to the shack burst open again, and Ruby's eyes widened as a gelatinous mass of writhing yellow goo collapsed out of it, a single red eye floating in the morass of filth while tendrils of goo spread out in all directions.

The eye rotated toward her, and the teenage witch felt her heart stop.

"YOU! You did this to meeeeeeee!" Tobaki cried out, her voice searing Ruby's very thoughts as several tentacles wiggled in the air malevolently.

Ruby's eyes rolled back into her head, and she fainted on the spot. Chopper didn't notice.

"Tobaki, leave her alone!" Tsukune chided from behind the yochlol, "and back up, you're clogging up the doorway."

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Tobaki immediately dropped her appendages and pulled herself back into the shed.

Keito growled from where she was seated on a large cobweb in one corner. "I don't see why we have to babysit this fool. Let us be rid of her at once!"

"That's the worst possible thing we could do," Tsukune said, annoyed that Keito wasn't keeping up her usual facade of listening to him without question, "putting aside that the other witch hasn't been captured yet, we can't be sure there are only two. We also know that there's some kind of army out here, and it might go on a rampage if the witches just vanish. We need to capture all of them and force them to dismantle their plans, or at least learn enough about them that we can take care of it ourselves."

The spider woman snorted, clearly unimpressed by the logic. Certainly she didn't see what was wrong with killing the witch and letting the other one go about its plot, but she wasn't about to voice such an opinion in front of Tsukune.

"The big problem is the level of hatred she has toward humans. It's kind of strange, really," Tsukune offered as Chopper carried Ruby into the shack, "I just wish I knew what happened to her. What did we do to her that's so terrible?" His voice was curious, but also worried. "I know that humans are selfish and can be thoughtless, but that can't be a reason to kill so many people!"

Keito sighed. "Please. This ISN'T a moral quandary. The witches here don't want to kill humans because humans deserve it. That's just a desperate justification."

Tsukune looked surprised by her statement, and Tobaki started wiggling a tentacle above her head.

"But humans are always spreading their settlements and displacing the local environments, right?" Tobaki said, "Captain Tsukune said that's what the humans were planning on doing to the knoll."

"Oh, so what?" Keito scoffed, "don't the rest of us do the same thing? Do you think the witches were the first ones to lay claim to the knoll? Of course not. They came to this place, changed it for their purposes, and killed anything that threatened their interests. Their goal can't be moralized, because they're not angry at humans for being immoral: the witches are angry at humans for taking all the good real estate first and being successful enough that they can just march into the knoll and take it whenever they want."

Keito leaned back into her web-hammock, lacing her fingers together behind her head. "I believe you humans call that 'survival of the fittest'. It's no wonder the witches resent it, but it's not like they would do any different in your place."

Tsukune seemed shocked by the argument, though less by its logic and more from the fact that a defense of his race was coming from Keito. "Well... then what can we do? If they just hate humans for existing and taking up space, how do we co-exist?"

"You DON'T," Keito said, smirking as she slid one index finger across her neck, "you do the same thing that EVERY stronger species does when a weaker one threatens it. Extermination."

Tsukune's expression hardened. "That isn't an option."

"It's the same strategy the witches are using, correct?" Keito asked, rolling her eyes, "they're not giving you a choice. Kill or be killed. There's no other way."

Tsukune clenched his hands into fists and glanced at Ruby, who was laid out on another patch of webbing and seemed to be sleeping peacefully during her horror-induced nap.

"There IS another way," Tsukune said finally, glaring up at Keito, "Youkai Academy. Adaptation, and assimilation. We CAN co-exist. Humans, trolls, vampires, witches, even you spider monsters. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than butchering each other for territory like animals."

"Do you really believe that?" Keito asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I have to believe that," he replied as he stepped out of the shack, "that's also part of being human."

* * *

"Tsukune! I see Kurumu coming back!"

Tsukune turned around and glanced up at the sky, glad that his subordinates were finally returning.

"Good. Where's Kouma? Chopper, do you see him?"

The wrestler squinted as he placed a hand to his brow, searching for any movement among the sunflowers. "Nah, I don't see nuthin'. Maybe they couldn't find him?"

Tsukune frowned deeply. "Well, let's find out."

Kurumu landed heavily at the edge of the camp site, with Kana, as usual, making a more graceful descent while holding her skirt down modestly. The girls had been gone for hours, and it didn't escape Tsukune's notice that Kurumu had found time to put her hair back up.

"Tsukune!" the succubus said, flailing her arms about, "no good! We couldn't find him!"

Tsukune blinked. "Couldn't find him? What do you mean?"

Even putting aside his tendency to shoot fire, Kouma had been using his hellhound form, which should have been very easy to spot, or at least track from the sky. The sunflowers just weren't large enough to conceal a big black shape of Kouma's size, and he should have left a trail of crushed flowers everywhere he went.

"We found the clearing, and there were these two really weird trees which were all burnt, and we even found a cigarette on the ground, but no Kouma," Kurumu explained with a shrug, "Kana tried searching the trail he made on his way to the clearing in the first place, but she didn't find anything there, either."

Kana nodded mutely, though she looked rather bored by the entire affair.

Tsukune scratched his forehead in puzzlement. "Okay, so he was there, and he was fighting, and then... he vanished? No sign of him, the witch, or where they may have gone?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," said Kurumu nervously, running a hand through her hair.

"Though we did spend a good half-hour washing our hair at that restroom Kurono found," Kana said suddenly, surprising Tsukune by speaking audibly while not under stress and surprising Kurumu by telling Tsukune what she had assumed was a mutual secret.

"Hey! We only did that AFTER we decided that we couldn't find the mutt!" Kurumu protested, her brow dotted with sweat, "besides, you took longer than I did!"

"All right, that's enough. It doesn't matter," Tsukune said, "do we have any ideas as to where the witches are hiding out?"

"If I knew that Oyakata lady better I could do a divination, but as it is now..." Yukari trailed off helplessly, "I barely got a glimpse of her before we left."

"We didn't find anything that was obviously a house," Kurumu mumbled apologetically, "sorry."

Tsukune dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. "So our only way to find the other witch is to comb the entire knoll, which will take forever if we stay together and probably get us killed if we don't. Or..." he glanced at the shed.

"You know, if let Keito cut loose on her, I'll bet she could get any information she wanted," Kurumu pointed out, "that girl knows creepy, and she could probably use Tobaki to-"

"I'm not going to torture or scare the information out of Ruby," Tsukune said, waving off the idea, "the witches hate humans for being cruel and destructive, and I'm not going to prove them right."

Moka frowned. "Maybe if one of us talked to her instead?"

Yukari sighed. "I doubt it would help. She's convinced we've all been brainwashed by Tsukune's Rhetoric ability. Which might be true, for all I know, but it doesn't make mass murder okay!"

Tsukune sweatdropped. "It's... It's not really an 'ability' persay, it's just-"

"Anyway, it would be best if Tsukune appealed to her directly, because then at least Ruby knows that if he's sincere, he's not being sincere about someone else's lies. She'd be dealing with the source directly and have to see how her prejudices of humans measure up."

Tsukune nodded grimly. "I agree. I'll just have to give it my best."

Kurumu looked unconvinced, but then her eyes lit up. "Wait! I have an idea! I know how you can disarm her mistrust of humans!"

Tsukune quirked an eyebrow. "How?"

* * *

Inside the maintenance shed, Ruby had finally awoken on the dusty floor, and was thoroughly regretting her return to consciousness.

She was huddled in a corner atop several blankets, while Keito lounged in her webbing hammock on the side of the shack. Tobaki laid beneath her in an oozing pile, her one eye aimed at the teenage witch.

Ruby felt resentful from being imprisoned, and angry at the human that dared to step onto Witch's Knoll and start capturing its inhabitants like he owned the place. She was also bitter about being rejected so easily by Yukari, who would have certainly made a valuable ally and hopefully a friend.

But through the swirl of anger and disappointment, she could only think of one thing to say to her guards.

"I'm sorry," Ruby mumbled, her head down.

"Pardon?" Keito asked, quirking an eyebrow. Tobaki would have done the same, if she'd had any.

"The curse... it hit you, right? You're... Tobaki?" Ruby asked the red eyeball hesitantly. Every sense she had was screaming in disgust at her proximity to the thing, but her guilt proved stronger. "That wasn't intentional. The curse was meant for Tsukune, but it accidentally hit you, instead. And I'm sorry."

"You missed with a CURSE?" Tobaki asked, her eyeball rolling slightly as her gelatinous mass shifted.

Keito couldn't help but smile at the thought. "Well, it's nice that you tried. And that you're apologizing now. But I need you to understand that if it wasn't against my orders, I would be drinking up your liver right about now."

"Humanoid liver is a delicacy on some planes," Tobaki explained needlessly, still causing pain to all those that heard her, "though most recipes call for it to be baked, not liquefied."

Ruby wasn't listening to the demon, as she had latched onto Keito's obvious amusement with her assassination attempt. "Then you too hate humans?" she asked eagerly.

Keito hesitated for a long time, very aware that Tobaki was in the room and that the clueless yochlol believed Keito to be a trustworthy and loyal Committee member.

"I have no qualm with the human race in general," Keito said honestly, "though having to obey one of them can certainly chafe. And whatever I may think about Aono, my OLD captain would have killed you and burned down your field in an instant for daring to attack us. So in a twisted sort of way, you should be thankful."

Ruby snorted as she got up to sit cross-legged. "The human is just keeping me around because he needs my knowledge. As soon as he's done with me, he'll kill me in an instant."

"Sadly, that's doubtful," Keito said, sighing, "if you were to give us the cure for Tobaki's curse, he's more liable to forgive you completely and let you free, even though I'm CERTAIN human justice usually demands harsher penalties for attempted murder."

"Human justice," Ruby spat distastefully, "that's exactly the sort of perversion that me and my lady work to unravel. They impose their foolish laws upon this world without a care, taking what they wish and destroying anything in their way! And then, when they're threatened, they rant about the evil nature of their enemies and wipe them out mercilessly!"

"I know, right? I can't wait until I get to live with them!" Tobaki said, her mind-voice managing to sound giddy as it sent spikes of pain through Ruby's thoughts.

"Yes, well, since you seem to be immune to irony, perhaps a deal might be reached," Keito said, sitting up in her web and narrowing her eyes, "your curse is inconveniencing Tobaki here, you see, and we want it removed. If you do this, I can offer you freedom."

Ruby tilted her head slightly, intrigued. "Really? You would let me go? Even though the human hasn't agreed to it?"

Tobaki would have frowned if she possessed a face of some sort. "But Big Sis, wouldn't that run contrary to what we learned about right and wrong and responsibility? She would be able to go right back to plotting mass murder, right?"

"Oh Tobaki," Keito chuckled as she ran her hand over the red, bowling-ball sized eye sitting atop the mound of sludge, "that isn't as important as getting you cured. Besides, Aono will do something about the attack on his own. He doesn't need another witch's help."

Ruby looked tempted, but only for a moment. "And why would I trust you? You told me yourself that you would eat me if given the chance."

"All right, all right, fine," Keito sighed, "I'll set you free, AND I won't kill you after you give us the cure to the curse. Is that better?"

Ruby sighed. "Forget it. I have no reason to believe in you. You're not even a witch."

Keito looked annoyed as she laid back into her webbing. "Hmph! Fine then, you go ahead and negotiate with the human instead! See how that goes!"

At that moment there was a knock on the shed door, and Tsukune's voice called out a moment later.

"It's me! Can I come in? Nobody's changing or anything, right?"

"Well, technically I'm naked, but I really don't see that changing any time soon," Tobaki admitted, "come on in, Captain!"

Ruby's heart started beating faster as she turned away from the door, refusing to meet the human's eyes as he entered.

This was it. She had been questioned when she'd arrived at the camp, but now it was time for a real interrogation. She didn't know what, in particular, the human would ask, but there were plenty of possibilities. And here, in this barely-lit shack with a pair of terrifying monstrosities as guards, he would doubtless use every means available to him to stress her mind to the breaking point. Her life meant nothing to him compared to those of his fellow humans. Her life probably meant nothing to him regardless.

But she would not break. She would not even bend. Ruby would never betray her home or her lady, and if given even a glimmer of a chance, she would kill the human here and now, even if it meant her execution!

"Ruby? Can I talk to you?" Tsukune asked, entering the shed.

Ruby steeled herself, bracing her mind and body for the cruel violations to come. Slowly, with contemptuous disregard for the human boy, she turned her head around to look at him, a disgusted sneer on her face.

Tsukune stepped gingerly as he approached, on account of him having Ranma's giant spider, Guile, sitting on his head. The arachnid's legs clung to his temples, and its onyx-like black eyes stared into Ruby's; a soulless gaze that arrested her attention far better than Tsukune's. Its fangs wiggled curiously, as if restless, and its dark carapace gleamed from the slivers of sunlight that peeked in through the edges of the door and the shack's one high window.

"D'awwwwwwwww!" Ruby cooed, her hardened expression melting instantly before the giant spider.

"Nice hat," Keito said with a smirk.

Ruby held a goofy smile for a few seconds before remembering where she was, and she forced her expression into a frown again. "Y-You! What do YOU want?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you a few questions, Tsukune said honestly, "I was hoping we could get to the bottom of your prejudice against humans."

This surprised Ruby, since she didn't know why Tsukune would care about her feelings, but decided that any information given over to the human would definitely harm her cause. "Forget it! You're wasting your time!"

Tsukune shivered as he felt Guile shift on his head. "Well, fine, but do you think you hold this guy for me?" he asked, pointing to the giant arachnid, "then we can talk."

Ruby's eyes gleamed even as she rushed to refuse. "What? Do you think you can bribe me! Ha! I won't be taken in with your cheap offer of cuddling a... uh..." As she trailed off, Ruby's brain caught up with her body and she realized that she was already holding the spider in her arms, having lifted it from Tsukune's head the moment he gave her permission.

Tsukune let out a sigh of relief as he sat down across from the witch. "His name is Guile. He belongs to my roommate at Youkai Academy."

"He's adorable!" Ruby gushed, having given up the last pretenses of hateful resistance as she stroked the spider's quivering abdomen.

"Yes, well... I was hoping I could tell you a little about Youkai Academy before I asked you anything," Tsukune said cautiously, "Youkai Academy is a school for monsters, where they learn to act like humans so that they can live and work in human civilizations."

This seemed to startle Ruby out of tickling Guile's pedipalps long enough to respond. "What? Why would they want to do that?"

"There are a variety of reasons, and honestly some of the monsters obviously DON'T want to live with humans," Tsukune explained, "but the idea behind the school is that peaceful coexistence is always preferable to fighting it out until the weaker species is wiped out."

"Especially when you're on the losing side!" Tobaki interjected, wiggling a tentacle in the air as if to remind everyone she was there.

Ruby's teeth clenched. "We are not weaker! Witches WILL overcome the humans and save the knoll!"

"Okay, fine. Let's say you do. And then what?" Tsukune asked, "when the humans' introduction to witches is being driven out of their cities and killed by the thousands, do you think they're not going to try to fight back? Can your army beat a human army, with guns and planes and tanks?"

Tsukune gestured to Keito. "Maybe it could. I don't know. But Youkai Academy offers a better way. It proves that monsters, humans, and even witches can live peacefully together if we really try."

"You're using ME as an example of this?" Keito deadpanned, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'd use Tobaki if she wasn't stuck in her monster form," Tsukune admitted before turning back to Ruby, "I'll admit that the arrangement is far from perfect, too; the only thing keeping Keito from killing me is the stronger monsters that like me and would punish her for it."

"You can prove nothing!" the spider woman protested.

"But it's still better than just killing each other until the best species wins," Tsukune finished, locking eyes with a doubtful-looking Ruby, "so what I want to know is: why do you want to turn this into a war so badly?"

Ruby barely hesitated before speaking, still stroking the arachnid in her lap. "Even if co-existence IS possible, it will be better our way!" she claimed, her expression grim. "With the humans cleansed from their city, this knoll will be a refuge for those who do not WISH to submit to human civilization!"

"And that's worth tens of thousands of lives?" Tsukune asked, leaning forward. "It really seems to me like you WANT the humans dead, rather than just wanting them off your land. Did we... do something to you?"

Ruby pursed her lips briefly, giving only the scarcest thought to her earlier conviction to remain silent. The truth was, she really WANTED to let the human know about why she hated him. She'd wanted to shout it out to him and every other human she had the misfortune of coming across. And now she might be getting her last chance to do so.

"Yes, you did. A human killed my parents," Ruby said bitterly.

Tsukune's expression darkened. "Ah. Yeah. That would definitely explain it."

"My parents believed in co-existence. They decided to try to raise me in the human world, so that I wouldn't have to deal with conflicts like this. And for their tolerance they were killed, wiped out in an instant, right in front of me!"

Tsukune winced. "I can't believe... I'm so sorry," he mumbled, though the words felt entirely inadequate for such a tragedy.

"You're sorry? SORRY? A fat lot of good that does anyone!" Ruby shouted, causing Guile to scuttle off her lap as the spider sensed her irritation. "You humans put so much stock in your corrupt order and vaunted laws, but for me there was no justice! The killer left immediately, escaping before the blood even dried on the grill of his vehicle!" Ruby cried, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"I don't know what to say," Tsukune mumbled, feeling numb as he bowed his head, "I can't possibly defend... Uh... Did you say 'vehicle'?" He raised his head again, an eyebrow quirked. "Wait, your parents died in a car accident? Not as part of a witch hunt or a mugging or something?"

"You can't be serious," Keito drawled.

"So what? They were still killed by a human!" Ruby protested, clenching her hands into fists.

"Well, sure, probably," Tsukune said, holding up his hands, "but it wasn't an act of aggression, right? The driver didn't intend to hurt anybody, even though it was horrible of him to leave without taking responsibility for what he did."

As Ruby frowned, Tsukune pressed forward. "For that matter, if it wasn't for the fact that he managed to escape, he WOULD have been punished for that. We have laws against hitting pedestrians, even by accident, and laws against leaving after a collision. This sort of thing happens to humans all the time. It's tragic, but we do the best we can to guard against it."

Ruby's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What do you mean they were 'probably' killed by a human? I was there!"

Tsukune winced again. "Well, yeah, you're right! There's like, a ninety-nine percent chance it was a human! But, you didn't meet the person who did it, right?"

"But... No, of course it was a human! I could see him through the window!" Ruby protested.

"AHEM," Keito coughed into a fist, and then calmly gestured to herself. "Monster in human form. And we know that some monsters learn to drive human vehicles, since our bus driver clearly wasn't human."

"And we know that monsters would run down witches just for giggles, because we hate you guys!" Tobaki said, waving at Ruby with a tentacle.

"NO!" Ruby shouted, shooting to her feet with her hands and teeth clenched. "It was the humans! I know it! They killed Mother and Father! My parents didn't deserve to die!"

"You're right," Tsukune said firmly, standing up, "it was almost definitely a human, and it was a human technology that killed them. They would probably be alive right now if it weren't for the humans that they tried to live with peacefully, and I have no excuse for that," Tsukune said, bowing his head, "but what you're doing won't improve anything. If you carry out your plan, you'll be inflicting the same pain upon thousands upon thousands of people, and they won't even know why. Will that make you feel better? To see human children orphaned like you were, by the hundreds? For a crime committed by one lowlife who would be in prison if we could find him?"

Keito opened her mouth, but Tsukune held up his hand, forestalling her inevitably nasty interjection. Keito turned her head away, grumbling under her breath.

Ruby, for her part, looked uncomfortable as her eyes wandered away from Tsukune's.

"Well... n-no, I suppose it wouldn't. But, what are we supposed to do, then?" Ruby said uncertainly. She had not been expecting an apology from the human, much less a sincere one. She had imagined that a human would brush off her past, or that they would cling to some excuse, as it seemed he was going to do by implying the perpetrator might not be human at all. It left her feeling... hollow, somehow, as if the crusade she had embarked on with Oyakata had lost it's meaning. With the edge taken off her emotions, the immediate goal of their plans, to exterminate a city to protect the knoll, hardly seemed like a simple or reasonable solution.

Tsukune saw Ruby's disturbed expression and calmly took hold of her shoulders. "Take me to Oyakata. Let me speak to her," He felt her tense at his touch, but as she locked gazes with him her resistance weakened rapidly, "let me prove to her that it doesn't have to be this way. That we can save Witch's Knoll without bloodshed!"

"Awww, yeaaaah. Milk that diplomacy bonus," Tobaki said to Keito via telepathy as they watched.

"It's actually rather fascinating to watch in action," Keito whispered, leaning forward in her web. "Ooh! I think she's about to break!"

Ruby pursed her lips, and then turned her head away. "I... I can't," she mumbled softly.

Tsukune fought off a sigh. "Why not? I don't want to harm either of you! I just want to put an end to this!"

"That may be true, but..." Ruby spoke hesitantly, obviously aware that her decision may be the wrong one, "Lady Oyakata raised me when I had nothing left, and taught me about the evils of humanity."

Tsukune's eye twitched at that, but he said nothing as Ruby took a deep breath.

"I want to believe you. About everything. But I can't risk leading you to my lady. If you're lying, and just want to find her so that you can try to subdue or kill her, I could never forgive myself for betraying her."

Ruby raised her head again, tears leaking from her eyes. "I'm sorry. I really do want to end this, to stop this mistake. But I can't take that risk. I owe Lady Oyakata too much."

Tsukune was honestly quite touched that she was now shedding tears at the prospect of the deaths she had helped to bring about, although his results seemed wholly inadequate given the impending assault he was failing to stop.

"That's... That's fine," Tsukune said wearily, sighing as he backed away from the witch, "for now, it's enough that you don't want to help kill us all. Thank you, Ruby."

"For what?" sneered Keito, "she whined about her dead folks and then proclaimed that she was completely useless even though you're right."

Tsukune gave the spider woman an annoyed glance, but ignored her. "I hope you'll understand that I can't let you go until I have the opportunity to meet with your guardian," he said, "hopefully she'll come for you, and we can negotiate then."

Ruby nodded sadly, sitting back down. "Can... Can you leave the spider here?" she asked timidly, pointing at Guile, who was resting in one of the cobwebs stretched over the wall.

"Yeah, okay. Sure," Tsukune said, a sweatdrop rolling down his head, "I'll bring you your dinner later. If you want anything else, just ask Tobaki to get me."

* * *

As he exited the shed, Tsukune ran a hand through his hair, recalling the uncomfortable feeling of pointed leg clinging to it.

"What IS IT with monster girls and spiders?" he asked no one in particular.

"How did it go?" Moka asked as she turned toward him.

"Rather well, actually, but not great," Tsukune shrugged as he walked up to the camp fire where the others were waiting, "I convinced her that humans aren't all out to get her and destroy everything, but she still won't tell me where the other witch lives."

Yukari's eyebrow rose. "I'd say that overcoming a lifetime of hateful prejudice in fifteen minutes is pretty great on its own, actually."

"Maybe," Tsukune said glumly as he sat down, "I just can't help but feel like this would be easy if Ranma were here, though."

Kurumu snorted as she nodded her head. "Yeah, that's true. I'm sure HE would've beat up that old hag without a problem."

"I wonder what he's doing right now?" Tsukune mused.

* * *

"I'm on the HIIIIGHWAY TO HELL!" _Bum! Bum!_ "HIIIIGHWAY TO HELL!"

Ranma lounged back in a booth in the rather high-end bar, still in her girl form as she snacked on nuts while looking only marginally entertained.

The booth was next to the bar's stage, where Richard was singing with surprising proficiency.

That all the instruments were played by skeletons bleeding green fire from their eye sockets didn't seem to bother anyone, although Ranma did wonder if they were from fresh victims or just exhumed.

"Oh I'm on the highway to Hellllll..." Richard finished smoothly, leaning forward while holding the microphone stand against his side. The clientele of the bar started clapping politely, and the skeletons all stepped away from their positions and bowed.

"You don't know any bands other than AC/DC, do you?" Ranma asked, propping up her cheek with her elbow.

"Why would I need to know any other bands?" Richard asked, standing up straight again.

"Actually, I usssed to head a Poissson cover group," slurred one of the skeletons, raising its bleached arm, "ssso we could-"

_BWOOM!_ The hapless bassist exploded into bits of flaming bone and hateful shrieks as Richard pointed at it, causing the magics to come undone explosively.

The clapping got louder.

"It washn't shupposhed ta be like dish," Jadeite mumbled, his head resting listlessly on the counter of the bar, surrounded by a dozen empty shot glasses. "I wash shupposhed ta be vitorioush. The Shenshi were... Dey were..."

The bartender put down another glass, and she put down a half-empty bottle of scotch next to it.

"Buddy, I'm tempted to cut you off right now, but since you're not driving I'll just make you pay for the ones you've already had before you get another," she explained, holding down the scotch.

One of Jadeite's listless, bloodshot eyes glared up at the woman. "I could ssshlay ya eashily _Hic!_ ignorant mortal."

"And then where would you go?" the bartender asked, quirking her eyebrow, "this is the only bar in this district that actually allows evil wizards inside. Don't make me regret that policy!"

Jadeite made a pitiful groaning noise, and started digging through his pockets.

* * *

Back at the knoll, night had long since fallen and after eating, the Protection Committee had settled down to rest, no closer to figuring out the whereabouts of Kouma or the witch who had presumably defeated him.

Given that they were expecting an attack, Tsukune had decided that shifts should be taken three at a time, and he was currently taking his own along with Chopper and Kana.

He found it curiously rewarding.

"What I don't get is why it's such a big deal to break someone's legs. They get better, right?" the troll asked to an increasingly perturbed Tsukune, "I know it hurts, but whatever, that's just a temporary thing. It toughens you up!"

Kana yawned, and then rubbed the tears from her eyes that resulted.

"Well... It's like this," Tsukune said gingerly, steepling his fingers, "you have to think about this from the perspective of someone who doesn't heal almost instantly. It takes most people a long time to recover from having major limbs broken."

"What, like a whole day?" Chopper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, not like..." Tsukune trailed off as he considered the topic further. "Okay, let's look at it this way. Remember when Ranma dislocated your arms so that you couldn't use them?"

Chopper nodded. "Yeah, that sucked, but whatever. It was a fight. You don't challenge a guy like him if you're not willing to lose an arm or two."

"Right! That's absolutely true!" Tsukune agreed, leaning forward on the fallen tree he was using as a seat. "If you accept that you're fighting someone seriously, then you have to expect you might be injured! Likewise, if someone is actually going to resist arrest even though they know they're in the wrong, in the same way they're accepting the risk that they might be injured for the chance of getting away. Right?"

"Yeah, okay. So?"

"So imagine that you weren't fighting, but someone was just annoyed by something you did, like using all the weights in the gym for yourself or eating their pet. So they dislocate your arms for it."

Chopper blinked. "But I do those things all the time!"

"Right. And now, unexpectedly, your arms are useless. You didn't consent to any fight, but they injured you anyway for something that you think is really petty. That isn't fair, right?"

Tsukune was quite gratified to see the wrestler mulling it over, his brow creasing as he rubbed his giant chin.

"I'm not saying that it's never okay to use that kind of power, but it shouldn't be used lightly. Breaking people's arms and legs like it's nothing isn't as bad as killing them, true, but it's still dangerous, so you should only resort to that kind of force when necessary."

Chopper looked slightly depressed as he nodded, clearly reluctant to concede that snapping people's limbs like chopsticks could be bad thing.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. It does seem a little bothersome for them to have to go to the nurse's office just because they were in front of me in a line that wasn't moving fast enough." Chopper looked somewhat guilty as he said this, which Tsukune quickly rationalized as a success on his part while trying not to think about fellow students being mangled just for being in front of Chopper in line.

"I like how you got your point across without any real comprehension on his part," Kana said suddenly, startling the two boys out of their discussion, "maybe next you can explain to Shirayuki why it's wrong to stalk other people's boyfriends."

The way she said it, hunched over and looking perfectly bored, made it clear she was being sarcastic, but Tsukune was quite surprised to hear her speak at all without something to agitate her.

"I thought you and Ranma weren't a thing, though," Chopper pointed out, "if he 'aint attached, then it's okay to stalk 'im."

"Well, no, actually, it's not," Tsukune said awkwardly, staring at Kana, "but I thought you two were getting along better?"

The siren let out an annoyed breath, although even that sounded curiously melodic to his ears. "It doesn't matter whether we're getting along! There's no reason for her to be skulking around all the time! It's annoying and creepy!"

Tsukune thought about asking about why she was so talkative all of a sudden, but ultimately let it go. Kana was apparently psychologically unstable for reasons that no one had ever explained to him, and he didn't want to offend or embarrass her.

On the other hand, listening to her talk was proving to be a bit difficult; her voice itself was so entrancing and intoxicating that it took a few moments for his brain to finish absorbing the wonderful sounds and actually work out what the siren said.

"Sharing sleeping space with her is the worst!" Kana continued, running a hand through her hair, "it's cold enough in there without her, and I swear that-"

The siren stopped ranting suddenly, her single visible eye widening.

"Wait! I think I heard something!" she said nervously.

As before, it took Tsukune a few moments to process her warning, and he and Chopper froze while they listened intently.

"... I don't hear anything," Tsukune admitted after several seconds.

"My hearing is probably more sensitive than yours," Kana said with a shrug, "it allows me to better hear changes in pitch and trace echoes." She narrowed her eyes before slowly pointing off into the sunflower patch. "Out there. It doesn't sound very big, though. Maybe a small animal?"

Tsukune grimaced. "I think we've had enough problems with small animals so far. Can you drive it off from here?"

Kana cleared her throat noisily, then cupped a hand next to her mouth.

"WOOF! WOOF!" Kana let loose a few alarmingly realistic doberman barks, followed by an angry growl that Tsukune would have sworn was coming from somewhere in the sunflower field if he hadn't known any better.

"WHOA! All right! I surrender! No attack dogs, please!"

None of the three were expecting to hear a spoken response, and they all shot to their feet, prepared for the worst.

"All right, who or whatever you are, come out where we can see you!" Tsukune demanded as Chopper started cracking his knuckles.

"Fine, I'm coming! Chill out, already!" the voice asked irritably. It had a strange, otherworldly quality to it, similar to how Tobaki sounded in her demon form but without the painful resonance behind it.

"Gah! Blech! Damn spiders!" shouted the voice as a small, dark shape emerged from the sunflowers, "now even the normal ones are bugging me!"

Tsukune stared critically at the small black cat as it wiped spider webbing and small, curiously aggressive arachnids off of its face with its paw, its tail swishing back and forth behind it. It was fairly hard to see anything surrounding the camp site with only the dim light from the cooking fire, but the feline's body seemed to suck light into it, giving it the appearance of a pair of glowing eyes set in a vaguely cat-shaped dark mist.

"So... I SHOULDN'T break its legs, right?" Chopper asked, causing the intruder to stiffen.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary," Tsukune agreed dryly, "so, would you care to introduce yourself?" he asked the feline.

"Actually, no, I would not," the cat answered curtly before shaking its body from head to tail, flinging away the last of the attacking spiders.

Then it sat down on its haunches and locked eyes with Tsukune. "You're the human, right? I'll keep this short and to the point: I'm only here right now because I know you guys are in a jam and you're unwittingly responsible for my getting freed from six decades of imprisonment. So I'd appreciate it if you just listened to what I have to say and then let me leave. Hopefully without any more spider attacks."

"Yeah. Sorry, I'm not totally in control of the spider thing," Tsukune apologized, "what did you want to tell us?"

"Well, first off, your hellhound buddy got his sorry tail captured by the elder witch around here. I thought you might be wondering why he hasn't shown up yet."

Tsukune grimaced. "Damn! I knew it! We have to save him!"

"She must be pretty good to take down Gamaroshi," Chopper mused.

"She's a tricky one," the feline agreed casually, "also, the witches' dwelling is in the hill near the edge of the sunflower field. It's in the middle of three big trees, and the entrance is hidden from view from far away with an illusion spell."

Tsukune's eyes lit up. "Really? That's fantastic!"

Kana's visible eyebrow quirked. "And how do we know you're not leading us into some kind of trap?"

"You don't. Hell, for all I know I might have been let go specifically to lure you there without suspicion. But I wanted you to know in order to maximize the chances of you brutalizing that ugly crone Oyakata."

Tsukune didn't really know how to respond to that. He really preferred that he be thought of as an advocate of justice and order, not a tool of vengeance for others.

Nonetheless, he could hardly ignore the information he was being given when Kouma's life might be hanging in the balance. "Thank you... er, cat. I appreciate what you've done."

"No prob. I'm glad I didn't successfully kill you earlier, like I was supposed to," the cat said, waving a paw at the group. Upon seeing their surprised expressions, he shrugged. "Don't dwell on it. Water under the bridge, you know?"

"Er, right," Tsukune mumbled as the cat turned around and started to plod off, "I'm also glad you didn't kill me."

Just as the feline was about to duck back into the sunflower field, it stopped and turned its head around again. "Oh, right, just a heads up: these sunflowers are totally monsters. Thought you should know. Bye."

Then the cat slipped into the field, leaving the trio bewildered by its statement.

* * *

"All right, time to blow this joint. No more verdant hills and pristine flower patches for me!" the shadow cat said, looking proud of itself as it crept leisurely through the densely packed flowers, "maybe I should live in the city. Dirty, but apparently witches hate it there, so it can't be all bad!"

_Thump!_

The magic beast yelped as something came down on its tail, pinning it in place painfully. Swinging its head around, the shadow cat found itself staring into the merciless, dark-ringed eyes of Keito, who had her arms crossed under her breasts.

"Oh. Hey. It's... you..." the shadow cat mumbled with no enthusiasm, "man, you've got a lot of points in stealth, don't you?"

"I need it to give that dimwitted snow woman the slip," Keito said simply, staring down at the cat.

Keito said nothing else, so after a few seconds, the feline continued. "So, did you hear that bit about me telling you guys where the witches live and not being involved with any of this anymore?"

"I did," the spider woman said with a nod, "and I thank you for allowing us to get revenge on the scumbags that almost hurt Tobaki with their clumsy attempts at witchcraft."

"Awesome. Mind getting off of me now?"

Instead of getting off of it immediately, Keito waited until after she had picked the shadow cat up by the scruff of its neck, holding it at head level.

"No, wait! Stop!" the feline begged as Keito's fangs started poking out of her mouth. "Damn it, not another life! HELP!"

* * *

"Did anybody else hear a scream?" Kana mumbled, turning her head nervously as she scooted closer to the camp fire.

"I'm... sure it was your imagination," Tsukune said weakly.

Currently the human boy was standing behind Chopper, shining a flashlight on a sunflower while Chopper poked at it. Every once in a while he would shine the flashlight around at the surrounding sunflower patch, perhaps expecting to catch some hint of movement or other monstrous activity.

"Well, I don't see how this thing is anything but a plant," Chopper mumbled, giving the head of the flower a jab and watching it wobble back and forth from the impact.

"Maybe we should wake Sendo up?" Kana said, almost pleading.

"Well, she already spent her time on watch, so I'd really like to confirm this first, somehow," Tsukune said uncertainly, once again focusing on the sunflower as Chopper went ahead and snapped the stem in two, "I mean, it doesn't really make sense, right? There were lots of sunflowers trampled or burnt when you guys fought the garigaris. If they didn't respond to that, can they really be monsters?"

Tsukune nodded his head, finding faith in his logic as he spoke. "Maybe some of the sunflowers are monsters, but some of them aren't. Or maybe the cat meant that the witches were turning the sunflowers INTO monsters. Or it might have even been completely wrong about it. No reason to overreact."

"Yeah, I guess I could see that," Chopper mumbled as he scratched his head, staring down at the severed stem.

Then, on a whim, he grabbed the stem and yanked hard on it.

Tsukune's eyes went wide as the ground broke open all around the sunflower, disgorging a green, fleshy bulb almost as big as he was from the dry, crusty soil.

Chopper's brow creased as he stared down at the bulb, holding the entire uprooted plant just above ground level as Tsukune illuminated it with his flashlight. "Hey, is this what a sunflower's roots usually look like?"

"No, Chopper, I think-" Tsukune's explanation was cut off as the bulb suddenly quivered and unfolded, breaking up much of the remaining encrusted dirt as it shifted out of what was apparently a tight fetal position. Arms and legs with long, sharp talons grasped and flexed in their newfound freedom from the Earth, while an elongated, smooth-surfaced head stretched from its torso, lacking any apparent eyes but making up for it almost entirely in jaws and teeth.

"Okay, no, that's definitely not normal," Tsukune confirmed, the beam from his flashlight trembling noticeably as the creature sucked in air.

"SSSHREEEEEH!"

* * *

End Chapter 15

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

_Br-rum-rum-rum-rum-rum..._

In the wee hours of the morning, still hours from daybreak, a lone car wandered the back streets of the city, its unusually powerful engine reverberating through the otherwise quiet neighborhood.

Well, "neighborhood" was a poor descriptor of the region; the area was poorly lit and full of dirty alleys and grafitti. Japan was not known for slums or urban decay, but this particular area hosted plenty of both. It was a nest of criminals and vagrants, and few citizens who valued either law or peace would willingly enter during broad daylight, much less in the dead of night.

Thus it was one of the few places in the city that a noisy sport utility vehicle dripping blood from its front bumper could travel through without attracting exceptional attention.

As it rolled up into an unlit driveway, the porch light blinked on, revealing that the entire front grill of the automobile was covered by a dark cape that seemed to be stuck on by a layer of damp gore.

After a few seconds, the garage door at the end of the driveway rumbled open, and the SUV rolled into the garage.

"Yeesh, another one? At this rate I'll never get a good night's sleep again!" shouted a man sitting in a corner of the mechanic's garage, hitting the switch to close the garage door. He appeared to be the mechanic that presumably operated the garage, as he was wearing a set of grease-stained overalls and had a belt full of tools around his waist.

The SUV's engine was finally shut off, and the mechanic got up to greet his customer as the garage door closed shut.

The driver's side door opened up, and the mechanic was actually quite surprised to see a black cat hop out onto the floor of his garage.

"That was AWESOME," the shadow cat said, surprising the man even further as his mouth stretched into a fanged grin, "seriously, you're my hero, man. She didn't even see it coming!"

"Hmph. They never do. Bloody witches always think of themselves as hunters, executioners, and sometimes victims, but never as prey. The idea that they might be stalked, that a being possessing clairvoyance, flight, and a nearly flawless disguise might be killed by something as mundane as a car impact... it never hits them before I do."

The man that followed the shadow cat out of the car was a very heavy-set man wearing a tattered leather jacket and a flat cap while holding a liquor bottle in one hand. He spoke with a slight slur and plenty of contempt, but also with a level of weariness that suggested long experience with the topic at hand.

Even among those that took such professions seriously, no one would have suspected that George Byron could be a witch hunter without a very long and careful study of the man. A British immigrant from the country, he came off as physically inept, simple-minded, and more than a little paranoid.

A study of his jacket, however, would have revealed scores of knives hidden in the interior, and a golden amulet engraved with mystic scrawl sewn onto the back. If the one studying the item also happened to be well-versed in magic, they might have figured out that the amulet was a ward against psychic enchantment and scrying, so as to escape a witch's visions and illusions. And the ring he wore on his finger, an ugly iron affair with an an eye made out of simple quartz mounted on it, may have been recognized as an item of magesight, to better detect the bonds of magic and those who manipulate them.

For the layman, there was also the heavy crossbow and flamethrower he kept in his SUV. But in all fairness, those could be used to kill anyone.

"So, wait, what's with the cat?" asked the mechanic hesitantly, "I mean, aren't black cats that talk stereotypical witch familiars?"

"Not by choice, we're not!" the shadow cat snapped as George took a swig of brandy, "my species has been constantly enslaved for generations by those bastards!"

"It is fine. The creature was in the midst of being coaxed out of an alley with the dark magics of my target when I... intervened. I have studied the cat for deceitful magic and found none," George said as he trudged over to a stool and sat down, "also, its hatred of the witch is quite genuine. Those of us who have suffered at the hands of the bloody whores of Satan have an... affinity for one another."

The mechanic held up his hands. "All right, all right, if you say so. You want the usual cleanup job?"

"Make sure you get the magic item," George said, pointing to the front of his vehicle, "it became wedged in the front grill between a few vertebrae."

"What do you do with the items?" the cat asked excitedly as the mechanic searched for a crowbar.

"I have a collection of them that decorate my wall," George said solemnly between drinks, "they are my trophies, and the record of my long struggle. Every one of those accursed wands, books, rings and daggers is a blow against evil and another spark of hope for all peace-loving creatures, human or otherwise."

The shadow cat beamed as George nodded to it. "So you never told me what the witches did to you in the first place. As for me, that old crone Oyakata caught me eating plague toads in a pond near her home one day, and I guess she was using those or something. Without so much as a warning, she imprisoned me in one of her books and then let me sit on her shelf for six decades. Although she admits that it was only because she didn't want to search for her scroll of greater spaying/neutering."

"So which one would have happened to you?" the mechanic asked as he laid a tarp under the SUV bumper and started scraping off bits of corpse.

"Don't really have a gender. Magical shadow beast," the feline explained with a shrug, "though the scroll would still work on me. It is magic, after all."

George finished the brandy and placed it on the workshelf behind him. "For me, the witches came to a village I was visiting on holiday in the early spring, without warning or reason. It was a small fishing village, far from most other centers of civilization but not truly isolated. I was fishing at the time with my brother, who lived there with his wife."

He picked up the liquor bottle again, belatedly realized it was still empty, and then growled at it as if the bottle was itself responsible.

"They were carried to our village on the winds, some on wings, some on brooms, and some riding horrific monsters. From what I could tell, they made no demands or proclamations, but set upon their black magic while we were still gaping in shock."

He tossed the empty liquor bottle in the trash bin with a grunt. "Instantly the village was caught in a deluge. The formerly clear skies darkened and opened like floodgates, summoning a flash flood the likes we've never seen before. The ground turned to mud even before the water touched it, trapping those that tried to flee. The witches smashed those homes that might have survived the waters, breaking them open with wrecking balls of fell magics and subjecting their occupants to the flood or crushing them under debris. The boats, mine among them, were tossed over callously as the oceans grew violent, but in the open ocean, with my life vest, I managed to survive. My brother was not so lucky. He died with the rest of his family and friends."

"Intense," the shadow cat said, looking quite interested, if not exactly sad, to hear the tale.

"Naturally, no one believed me when I brought news of this atrocity back to civilization, completely waterlogged and nearly dead from exhaustion," George grumbled as he fingered his ring, "I was treated well, but dismissed as someone who had hallucinated something bizarre in the midst of an unbelievable tragedy. The village was written off as the victim of a flood or tsunami, although there were a great many strange things about the disaster. In time it was forgotten, and the village rebuilt."

Then his eyes narrowed. "Not me, though. I'll never forget that horror. The contempt with which we were wiped out, like invading termites. On that day I swore that I would pursue the witch and drive her from this land! To this day I've seen a full seventy-three of the fell sorcerers to Hell, but my task is not yet completed! I'll wipe them out! I'll bloody see them all die for what they've done!"

"Burn the witch! Kill them all!" the cat cheered, practically bouncing from paw to paw.

As George shouted up into the ceiling, the mechanic stood up from his work. "Aren't you afraid of feeding the cycle of hatred that contributes to humans and witches massacring each other, though?"

"No, I'm afraid I'll be pulled over for having a dead body pasted to the front of my bloody car!" George snapped, "plus, you know, the drinking."

"You shouldn't drink and drive, man," the mechanic chided before tossing something to the hunter.

George caught the item deftly, and then held it up: a crude-looking brass amulet with a jade mounted in the center.

"See how it reeks with evil, cat? Almost singes my fingers just to hold the damned thing," George said as he held it up, "another piece of tainted scrap for the collection."

The shadow cat grinned. "Cool! Can I be your sidekick?"

"A comrade on this hateful and bloody quest would be much appreciated, feline," George said, smiling slightly for the first time since either the cat or mechanic had known him as he knelt down and extended a hand to the magical animal, "since you have no name, I shall call you James, after my fallen brother."

The shadow cat raised its paw, sniffling with pride and joy as the man shook his hand. "I've never been so happy in my lives!"

The mechanic smirked as he watched the scene, watching the two individuals forming a touching bond of friendship based on their mutual hatred and desire for vengeance. Then he tapped his wrench against the hood of the SUV.

"Okay, but seriously though, lay off the booze while you're driving."

"Yes, yes, fine."


	17. Witch Season

"Hello readers! Thank you for making it to another chapter of predictable romantic comedy and asinine supernatural violence! We know you probably have better things to do!"

Shizuka Nekonome was standing next to her giant chalkboard, smiling cheerfully as she usually did during her explanatory segments. She did, however, have a vein bulging on the side of her head, which seemed to underscore the unsubtle bitterness in her words.

"Today we're doing the monster encyclopedia segment as the intro, because I guess I get too much page time in-chapter! Isn't that funny?" the cat-woman asked, her bright smile straining weakly.

She pointed to a series of chalk drawings on the board behind her portraying a humanoid creature with long, taloned fingers and a whip-like tail that ended in a flower. It head bore a distended snout that boasted a large, opaque lens that was likely its eye as well as a great number of razor-sharp teeth.

"This is a hanabake, a plant-like magical beast," Shizuka explained as she settled down into her usual routine, "magical beasts are a sort of monster sub-class; they're creatures that have magical natures like true monsters, but are not sentient and haven't developed an intelligence to use their magic properties properly to take human form. We went over this in part when I described the difference between a giant spider and a spider monster. They are to monsters as mundane dogs and such animals are to humans: pets, dangers, and sometimes enslaved servants."

"The hanabake in particular is one of the several such beasts that, although rare in their natural habitat, were sought out by wandering alchemists and witches and transformed to suit their needs as attack animals. They make decent if short-lived soldiers if one is able to control them, and can be cheaply produced by any hag who knows what she's doing."

Shizuka moved to the next drawing, which was a simple sunflower underneath a sketch of a sun with a smiley face on it.

"After being planted, the hanabake grows its tail out of the earth, which then sprouts and opens up to be a sunflower. In this gestating form, it relies entirely on sunlight, water, and soil nutrients just like any other plant, although it requires a devastating amount of the latter in order to build its active, mature body. Planting fields of hanabake can deplete the local soil to the point of making it completely unusable without other magic processes to restore it, to say nothing of what the mature hanabake will do to the above-ground wildlife when they emerge. The sunflower also holds the hanabake's reproductive organs, and it will receive and give pollen like any other plant in order to fertilize itself. If the sunflower tail is cut off before the body reaches maturity, sometimes the main body will wake up and emerge, but more often the hanabake falls into an even deeper sleep as its body starts to shut down and is eventually consumed by bacteria and local insects digging into its crumbling skin."

Shizuka moved on to another picture of the hanabake emerging from the ground, claws raking the air wildly.

"The gestation period lasts about three weeks to a month depending on weather conditions, and like most plants, the quality of the end product depends on the quality of the care given to your garden of taloned horrors. Ultimately though, when the hanabake emerges, it comes with only one directive: kill and eat. In this state, the creature is an unrestrained carnivore, and spends every sunlight hour searching, killing, and eating. Besides fueling its overpowered metabolism, this is also the means by which wild hanabake spread seedlings; its ovaries are placed to deposit new seeds in its droppings, which the hanabake instinctively buries, usually along with the remains of its recent kill."

The next drawing had complex sketches of the hanabake's hand and head, along with a cut-section to display its guts.

"In combat the hanabake has a tough outer carapace, which can vary in strength from strong wood to that of steel, depending on the breed and quality of its tending. The claws contain many heavy metals leeched from the soil, and can easily rip through the natural armor of most other creatures. The hanabake is incapable of activity if it can't photosynthesize, though, making them totally useless at night and weak during cloudy days. Their main drawback, however, is in their senses."

Shizuka tapped the drawing of the hanabake's head. "See this fishbowl-looking visor thingy? Notice how little it has in common with most animals' eyes? The hanabake is nearly blind, has awful hearing, and its nervous system is the envy of worms and not much else. Although it can hunt for prey using a mildly complex system of carbon-sensing glands and centuries of built-up instinct, these aren't much use in determining the exact angle necessary for their claws to strike their target. It's vision is more useful in combat, being complex enough to detect nearby movement, but it's still not useful for detecting hazards or distinguishing shapes. As a result, against agile prey the hanabake can seem clumsy, and its reflexes are a joke. However, in absolute terms the beast is strong, fast, and fairly tough, so in numbers or in thick vegetation they're very dangerous."

Shizuka bowed, clasping her hands behind her back.

"Thank you for listening, and enjoy the rest of the chapter! And tell that lazy son of a bitch author that I hate him!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents  
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Key: **Writing/Emphasis**, _Sounds_, 'Thoughts', _'Telapathic Speech/Inner Moka talking to Outer Moka'_, "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus  
Chapter 16  
Witch Season

* * *

"Yeesh, do you guys always get rooms like this?" Ranma asked as she stepped into the hotel suite behind Richard.

The room was about as big as the Tendos' entire house, with a low table and cushions on one side and a western table with leather chairs on the other, each which its own television. There were also three separate bedrooms, which cut the chance that Jadeite would vaporize her in her sleep by at least half, so long as he didn't sober up first.

"Expense accounts are the best," the warlock said as he slipped a credit card receipt into a small booklet, "you didn't think the only perks of befriending the Headmaster was the ability to massacre our students with impunity, did you?"

"Actually, yeah. It didn't really occur to me that you'd need another reason," Ranma admitted, shifting the load on her shoulder slightly. She was hauling Jadeite over her shoulders in a fireman carry, as the dark general had long since lost his ability to walk on his own.

Unfortunately for her, it seemed that Jadeite was resistant enough to alcohol that he didn't actually lose consciousness; ever since she had started carrying him he had been mumbling half-coherent threats of revenge and promises not to endure this humiliation.

Ranma didn't know if he meant the humiliation of his plan to kill the Senshi unraveling, the humiliation of having his revenge plot undermined by Richard's sense of showmanship, or the humiliation of being carried through the city like a sack of garbage by a teenage girl, but she figured there was plenty for him to choose from when and if he recovered enough to use his dark magic again.

"I call first shower!" Richard said as he skipped toward the bathroom.

"Aw, c'mon! I've been a girl ever since the hospital fire!" Ranma complained, "the hospital fire that YOU started!"

"It wasn't the fire that changed you," Richard noted as he opened the bathroom door.

Then he hesitated. "Wait, can you change forms using fire? Have you ever tried? Maybe we could-"

"Hurry up and wash," Ranma grumbled, collapsing onto the large leather couch in the center of the room.

After a few seconds, the door opened slightly, and Richard's cowled head poked out. "No peeking, now."

"Drop dead," Ranma deadpanned, "well, dead-er."

Richard ducked back into the bathroom, and a moment later the sound of the shower turning on came from behind the door.

"So, what are we still doing here, anyway?" Ranma asked, yelling to be heard through the door and over the shower, "we're done with Jadeite's dumb grudge, right?"

"I thought we could go do more sightseeing in a nearby district," Richard yelled back through the door, "a little place called Nerima."

Ranma blinked as a cold shiver ran down her spine. "Wait, Nerima? Why Nerima? I thought I was free after this!"

The shower shut off with a squeak. "Well, I could tell you that this is all part of some mysterious plan by the Headmaster that will slowly reveal the factions arrayed to disrupt the balance between the human and monster civilizations and put a stop to their nefarious schemes..."

As Richard trailed off, the sound of a hairdryer started up. "... But I think we both know I just want to visit your hometown to murder your parents."

Ranma frowned. "Why?"

"Because I think it's funny." The hair dryer shut off.

"Well, make sure you start with my pop," Ranma said, shrugging.

"Not a daddy's girl, are you?" Richard mused as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Ranma wanted to be annoyed at the feminine reference, but she was more annoyed to see that Richard was fully clothed from head to toe as usual, with not so much as a damp spot on his robes or the exposed portion of his face.

"Did you just run the water and hairdryer without actually using it?" she demanded.

"I have sensitive skin!" Richard claimed, sounding affronted.

_Crack!_ Ranma planted a foot into Richard's chest, and the warlock shuddered as his ribcage folded inward from the force.

"Your bones aren't so tough, either," Ranma quipped before she pulled her leg out, letting the undead magus fall backward onto the floor.

Ranma snorted before she stepped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Richard slowly pushed himself into an upright sitting position, though he was rather surprised to find that his lower torso wouldn't budge and that he had to hold his body up with his hands.

"How did she make all the force go to my skeleton without pushing my body back?" he wondered aloud.

"Who knowsh," Jadeite slurred from where he was still laying in an immobile heap, "aren't you da physhicsh guy?"

"Technically, I'm more an anti-physics type," Richard admitted, "still, it makes me wonder if all his family would face eldritch annihilation with such spunk. Tomorrow should be fun!"

"Make sshure ta put da 'do not dishturb' shign when ya leave," Jadeite mumbled, "I wanna shob the resht of da trip away in peashe..."

"Can do!" Richard said brightly, flashing the other professor a thumbs-up. Unfortunately this left his position unbalanced on one side, and he promptly collapsed onto the floor again.

* * *

Keito yawned lightly as she pushed open the door to the grounds keeper's shack, feeling the damp, early morning air stick to her skin and wishing, not for the first time, that the Protection Committee's training trip had taken them somewhere more comfortable and civilized.

It may have surprised many people who knew her, but Keito rather LIKED human civilization, although she was ambivalent about humans themselves. The tensions between humans and monsters, and the resentment that monsters tended to feel toward the humans that populated most of the world, seemed perfectly petty when she weighed it against having modern plumbing and fresh coffee.

"It would also be nice if I didn't have to hunt for food," she said aloud as she walked past Mizore, who was panting as she picked splotches of sap off her clothes.

Tsukune, who was holding the broken halves of a hoe while using one of them to poke at a body lying on the ground, glanced toward her. "What did you say?"

"I was just thinking, it's rather annoying that I have to hunt for food in an area that's already been scoured by predatory plants," Keito complained, "if we can't bring meat along because we have no way to refrigerate it, couldn't we take a break to find a restaurant?" the spider woman asked.

Chopper, Kurumu, Kana, Moka, and Yukari all turned toward her, their expressions all holding various degrees of disbelief and annoyance.

The area around the shack looked like a war zone, with holes torn into the ground and bits of foliage spread far and wide in a herbivorous parody of a bloody massacre. Severed limbs and crushed heads littered the Protection Committee's feet, still wet with sap and even still twitching, in a few spots. Chopper still held one of the beasts in his hand, the floral creature hissing and clawing uselessly at his arms as his fingers slowly caved in its shell around its neck. Its tail whipped back and forth irritably, the sunflower on the end of it

After several seconds of bemused silence, Keito planted her hands on her hips. "What? It's just a thought! Not all of us can eat vegetables and grains, you know!"

"Keito, have you somehow been unaware that we've been been fighting these..." Tsukune trailed off and glanced toward Yukari.

"They're called hanabake," the young witch mumbled as she wiped dirt and slashed leaves off of one of her sharp-edged tarot cards.

"These hanabake for the last few hours?" Tsukune finished, glaring quite deliberately at the spider woman.

Keito shrugged. "Not entirely, but what was I supposed to do?" she asked, "my venom is hardly useful against plants, and they would cut my webbing with ease. So there was no reason to waste my time and effort."

_Whumph!_ Chopper slammed the writhing hanabake into the ground, and then stamped on its head, making a dull cracking noise similar to the sound of a nut's shell being smashed.

"So you just slept through the entire fight," Tsukune said, not at all mollified by Keito's excuse.

"It wasn't my turn on watch, and I have to look after Tobaki and our prisoner," Keito insisted, "if you wanted my help, all you had to do was ask."

"Wait, so you knew about the hanabake?" Moka asked, "the rest of us only found out when Tsukune told us."

"We've been uprooting the leafy bastards all night, beatin' 'em into salad," Chopper said roughly, slamming a fist into the defeated hanabake below him.

Keito shrugged. "I overheard a few things last night when I encountered that magic cat. We spoke briefly before he departed this plane."

She frowned. "I mean, plain. As in, the terrain feature. As opposed to a plane, which is a distinct and separate reality from our own."

"Yeah, okay, I think we're all aware of the difference," Yukari said wearily, even though she was clearly the only other one who knew a thing about it.

"Great. Anyway, it warned me to keep Tobaki away from the witch if we were to face her," Keito said grimly, "apparently, the crone wants Tobaki dead as much as she does you, Captain, which was why she was targeted by the curse. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd guess it's the demon thing. They're not very popular."

Tsukune considered it briefly before he nodded. "That's fine. I wasn't planning on having her fight anyway."

"She'd probably be really good at it, though," Yukari pointed out.

"Yeah, but then we'd have to watch," Kurumu said with a shudder. Having briefly been exposed to Tobaki's wrath, she felt nothing but pity for anyone who crossed the Committee's treasurer, even if they were an enemy. To have those vile, slimy tendrils flailing at you in anger was horrifying in ways that defied description.

Although it was probably nothing compared to the sight of those tentacles writhing in lustful passion. Some days she really wondered how Ranma hadn't yet been reduced to a gibbering lunatic.

"Are we going to dig up the rest of the field?" Chopper asked, wiping off his legs.

Tsukune grimaced as he looked out at the sunflower patch. They had cleared a sizable portion of the plants from the field, but there were still thousands upon thousands to go. Luckily, relatively few of the sunflowers were actually disguised hanabake, but even if only one out of every fifty plants was a sleeping monster, there were probably still hundreds of monsters out there.

"Is there any way to eliminate these creatures more quickly? Without digging them up and destroying them one-by-one?" Tsukune asked the others, searching for any ideas.

As expected, Yukari was the first to offer a strategy. "I advise we rescue Gamaroshi and make HIM destroy them," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "if you destroy a hanabake's flower tail, then it either wakes up or dies, since it can no longer passively absorb energy from the sun and needs to eat meat. Set fire to the field and they'll be destroyed if they emerge, and die off slowly if they don't."

"Huh. And to think I actually stopped him from lighting up the place when we came here," Tsukune grumbled. Not that he could have reasonably expected the flower field to be a hidden army.

"All right, here's what we're going to do," Tsukune said, beckoning for his subordinates to move closer, "we're going to meet with Oyakata, but we're NOT going to attack her. She might not know that we know all about her plans. So I'm going to offer to trade our prisoner, Ruby, for Kouma. Once we have him back we'll return here and then destroy the hanabake en masse."

Moka brightened. "Without the hanabake, the witches won't have the power to attack the city!"

"Right! We'll return afterward to get Tobaki's cure, and if the elder witch wants to have a showdown then, we'll oblige her. But I want the witches to have every opportunity to back down."

"I'll elect to stay with Tobaki again," Keito said, raising her hand.

"Thank you, Keito. It's really thoughtful of you to save me the trouble of deciding on a role to give you that's least likely to end with you killing and eating me," Tsukune said to the spider girl. His honesty just made it more annoying to her.

"Always a pleasure to be of service, my captain," Keito drawled sarcastically.

"Yukari, could you lead the way? Lady Oyakata tried to recruit you, so she'll probably hesitate to attack on sight if you face her first. Kurumu, Mizore, Chopper, all three of you can go get Ruby and keep a close guard on her until we hand her off, but make SURE she isn't harmed in any way."

"Yeah, yeah. Legs stay unbroken, just like we talked about," Chopper murmured unhappily as Mizore turned to go get their prisoner from the shed.

"Kana, that means you're in charge of guarding Tsukune," Kurumu warned, "don't hesitate to sonic that hag into the ground if she tries anything.

"Sure," the siren said calmly, running a hand through her hair.

"I'll be on guard too!" Moka said with a nod.

Kurumu was polite enough to start coughing into her fist to disguise her laugh. Chopper and Kana were not so tactful, and even Mizore snickered quietly before she stepped into the Committee's makeshift prison and quarantine zone.

_'One day they're going to need me again,'_ grumbled Evil Moka telepathically, _'oh, how they'll beg, and beg, and I'll just laugh...'_

"Right. Yes. Be careful, Moka," Kurumu said, her serious tone of voice completely ruined by amused grin on her face.

As Moka started to sulk, Tsukune placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we're not looking for a fight. As long as this Oyakata lady has any sense at all, we'll get Kouma back without having to resort to violence."

"Did anybody else feel a chill?" Kana asked, rubbing her shoulders to warm them.

"It's not me," Mizore said as she led a nervous-looking Ruby from the grounds keeper's shed.

"Where are we going?" Ruby asked, "what are you going to do with me?"

"Hopefully, we'll be sending you back home," Tsukune said, earning a confused but hopeful expression from the teenage witch, "just follow closely. With luck, this will all be over without anyone getting hurt."

* * *

"With luck, this will all be over without anyone not getting hurt!" Richard said happily as he boarded the train headed for Nerima.

Ranma followed after the warlock, his hands in his pockets and a bored expression on his face.

A moment later the door slid shut, and the pair were on their way.

"I do hope your family puts up a fight as I unmake them. That whole affair with the Sailors was amusing enough, but far too brief," Richard confided as he scanned the train car. Although it wasn't crowded, all the seats were already taken.

"I don't think you'll have to worry. My old man is pretty lively," Ranma admitted, "anyway, while you're busy with that, I think I'll make a few visits. I kinda left Nerima in a hurry, and didn't get to say goodbye to everyone."

Richard scratched at his mask, giving Ranma an inquisitive look. "You're awfully... unconcerned about the fate of your parents. What, you don't think I'll go through with it?"

"I've literally mopped up your victims' remains before, Prof. I know better than that," Ranma scoffed, "normally I'd come along to make sure things stay under control, but like I said, I've got things to do when I'm in town. Pops will just have to take care of himself."

Richard didn't have a witty rebuttal to that (for once), so he turned back to the train's seats. Then he approached one of them, and leaned over slightly to speak directly to its occupant. "Pardon me, but may I take this seat? Senior citizen."

The current occupant, a skinny, wrinkled old man with a bush of gray hair sitting on his head in the shape of a bird's nest, glanced up at Richard as he clutched his cane. "My seat? I'm eighty-six! How old are you supposed to be?"

"Hard to say," Richard admitted, "they keep changing the calendars every time a civilization crumbles. Makes it hard to keep track of the millennia." Then his gaze narrowed. "But I'm pretty sure I'm senior-er than you."

"Excuse me, you can take my seat," said a teenage girl as she stood up.

"No. I want this one," Richard insisted, pointing to the elderly man, "I'm more comfortable when surrounded by the cloying stench of someone rapidly approaching death."

"I'm not giving you my seat!" the old man said angrily, tightening his grip on his cane.

"All right, fine. Let's be fair about this," the warlock said, making a fist with one hand and resting it in the palm of the other, "we'll play rock, paper, meteor swarm. Best out of three or last one left standing wins."

_THWACK!_ The old man's cane smashed into the side of Richard's head before he knew what was happening, and the undead magus was sent flying through the length of the train car.

_CLANG!_ Ranma winced as Richard careened into the wall at the end of the train car, leaving a considerable dent in the metal plating.

"That... was unexpected," Richard admitted, pulling his face out of the damaged steel, "does he do Tai Chi or something?"

"I'm in my fourth year of lessons. It's done wonders for my back," the elderly man mumbled as he settled back into his chair, "now settle down, punk! I'm trying to sleep!"

"I am confused and displeased," Richard said blandly as he stood back up.

"Get used to it. We're not even actually IN Nerima yet," Ranma said with a shrug, "it's a rough neighborhood."

"Are most of the residents monsters or humans?" Richard asked curiously, ignoring the presumed prohibition on speaking of such things in public.

"They're humans," Ranma said immediately, "obviously. I mean, I..."

He trailed off for a few seconds. "No, they're definitely human!" he concluded.

"You hesitated for a second there," Richard pointed out.

"Never mind. They're definitely human," Ranma grumbled, turning away and trying his best not to dwell further on the topic.

* * *

The Protection Committee walked in grim silence as they made a path through the sunflower fields, each member either preparing themselves for the encounter ahead or simply reflecting on the fact that they were literally marching over a sleeping army. Though the hanabake posed almost no threat when dealt with one at a time, the sheer numbers of the Earth-grown attack beasts suggested by the size of the sunflower patch left little doubt as to their chances if the army somehow awoke.

"There, it looks like the spot you described," Yukari pointed out suddenly.

The three trees were hard to see from the fields, as they were rather unobtrusive and scrawny. Which was precisely the point, Tsukune figured.

"The shadow cat really revealed our dwelling to you?" Ruby asked, looking only slightly dispirited about it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He was really angry about everything we've done to him. No doubt he'd go out of his way to make trouble for us."

"He did seem to be acting completely out of spite," Tsukune murmured, "something about sixty years of imprisonment?"

Ruby sighed and fell silent, not wishing to speak of the matter any further.

"Make sure to watch the ground," Kurumu said, holding onto one of Ruby's shoulders as she brought up the rear, "the crone uses vines to attack."

"I doubt she'd attack on sight, though," Tsukune reasoned, "not with Yukari and Ruby with us."

Yukari heard a cracking noise nearby, and stopped as she held up a hand. "Wait! Did you hear that?"

The others did indeed hear the sound, which sounded rather like several twigs snapping in uneven unison all around them.

"Do you think she'd attack WITHOUT actually sighting us?" Kana asked, slinking back toward Chopper, who made the sturdiest flesh shield.

"That would be really dangerous and indiscriminate, and..." Tsukune trailed off weakly, "totally in line with what she's done so far."

As if in a decisive confirmation of his comment, vines suddenly burst upward from the ground in a wide circle all around them, emerging so thickly that they created a wall of vegetation that crawled upward a good four or five meters before curving inward to cover the group like a dome that rapidly wove itself shut.

Within seconds, the party was completely covered in a huge net of foliage, the vines writhing like snakes as they curled together and intertwined to make the barrier thicker and tighter.

_Shunk!_ After a few seconds a sword-length blade of ice stuck out of the net, and Mizore started sawing a long cut into the trap as Chopper held most of the mass of vines up, to keep the others from being caught in the wriggling tendrils.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Tsukune admitted as he and Yukari stepped out, quickly followed by Moka and Kana, "she probably could have set up a much worse trap."

"These vine traps were set up in a few key spots in the knoll, to capture wandering humans doing construction surveys or exploring too close to our home," Ruby said bleakly as she led Kurumu lead her out of net, "we captured several in the days before you arrived."

"Well, at least they're non-lethal, right? So you were capturing the intruders alive," Tsukune pointed out.

Ruby said nothing, refusing to make eye contact with the boy as Mizore and Chopper broke free from the trap.

"Wait. Why were they captured alive? What happened to them then?" Kurumu asked.

Ruby's expression managed to become even more depressed. "We don't have much time. My lady will have felt the trap trigger, and will soon be here to check on it. I don't know how she'll react to me being captured."

"You're an important person to her, just like Kouma is important to us," Tsukune said firmly.

"Some of us," Kana corrected.

"Pretty much just Chopper and Tsukune," admitted Yukari.

"THANK YOU, girls," Tsukune snapped, silencing them with a glare, "like I was saying, we'll work this out. There's no reason for anyone else to get hurt, here."

"So says the human marching into the witch's den," croaked an irritated voice that echoed across the field. Instantly the members of the Protection Committee were on high alert, glancing around them nervously.

"Such gall, such arrogance to come to me, to attempt to invade my home! You sent your hound at me, and now he is mine. Did you think you would somehow fare better?"

Tsukune stepped forward, though he had no idea where the voice was actually coming from. "You're the elder witch Oyakata, right? I'm here to negotiate, not fight!" he shouted into the air, "you have our friend, and we have yours. When we're through here, I want both of us to leave with our friends unharmed!"

"Wretched human!" Oyakata's voice boomed, causing Kana and Moka to flinch, "you think to come dictate terms to ME? Just like the rest of your kind! You will pay for your arrogance! No punishment is too dire for daring to lay a hand on my dear Ruby!"

Tsukune could see that his friends were starting to get annoyed, and decided that he had to bring the conversation around before one of them took action themselves.

"Are you going to shout threats from out of sight, or are you actually going to come get her?" Tsukune asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You think to provoke ME?"

"I think you should come out where we can see you, for starters," Tsukune said blithely, "then I think you should agree to let Kouma free in exchange for us letting Ruby go free. That's it."

"You think I'd trust a human?" Oyakata's voice said incredulously.

"Well, I'm trusting a witch, despite you attacking us from the shadows all this time, so yeah, I think you can do that much to help this go smoothly."

Tsukune gestured to Ruby, who was still being flanked by Chopper, Kurumu and Mizore. "She's unharmed, as you could see for yourself if you'd actually come out here. If you can show me that Kouma is also safe, then I'll release her to you, and then you can release Kouma to us. That's it. No strings, no speeches, no violence. Isn't that fair?"

"Fair? You think it's fair for you to enter our land, destroying what you please?"

"I'm not going to have that argument with you," Tsukune said firmly, "at least, not today. I'm not here to convince you that I'm in the right, or that what you're doing here in the knoll is wrong. All I want is my friend back, and for that you can have yours. We can leave all the yelling and conflict and the cure to that curse you gave Tobaki for another day."

Tsukune was rather satisfied when he was answered by a long silence rather than another indignant shout, and he flashed Ruby an encouraging smile as the teenage witch glanced around nervously.

Then, a powerful gust of wind blew through the field, forcing the girls to all hold down their skirts by reflex as they were battered with dead leaves and crow feathers.

Tsukune made sure to keep his eyes open despite the gust, and was rewarded with the sight of Oyakata fading into visibility from within a small cloud of dirt and plant debris that had been kicked up by the wind.

"You're a filthy, hateful animal, human, and ruthless as well. You know I can't forsake my protege so easily as you would throw away one of your pawns. The witches of the knoll protect their own," Oyakata said grimly as she approached Tsukune, her hand clutching a book at her hip.

"Sure. Now where's Kouma?" Tsukune asked, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance.

The rest of the Committee went on edge at the sight of Oyakata, each of them ready to spring into combat at a moment's notice despite Tsukune's assurances. Ruby kept her head down, unwilling to meet her elder's eyes.

Oyakata ignored Tsukune's question, meeting Yukari's gaze. "Such a waste. So much potential. To think that you would side with humans against your own kin."

Yukari bristled and clutched Ruby's wand tighter against her chest, but said nothing.

"And you monsters are hardly any different," the crone said as she looked up at the girls and Chopper, "is it fear? Sorcery? Or are you all just so corrupt and brainwashed that you cannot-"

"KOUMA!" Tsukune snapped suddenly, interrupting her, "where is he?"

Oyakata gave him a heated glare, but reluctantly held up the book at her side. "Here. The hound resides within." The book was wrapped in leather straps, and seemed to tremble in the witch's hands.

"In the book? Are you serious?" Kurumu asked.

Oyakata wordlessly pulled one of the leather bindings loose.

"-HUNT DOWN YOUR ANCESTORS AND KILL THEM TOO! I CAN DO THAT, YOU KNOW! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR SICK, FILTHY KIN WILL BURN IN THE-"

Oyakata slipped the binding back into place, which caused the book to fall silent.

"Yeah, that's Kouma. And he sounds healthy as ever," Tsukune said with a satisfied nod, "very well. Then we're going to let Ruby go now, and immediately afterward you'll release Kouma from the book, agreed?"

"It is agreed, human," Oyakata spat, "free Ruby at once! And return her magic wand!"

Tsukune stepped aside and nodded to Yukari. Yukari gave Oyakata a skeptical glance, but held out Ruby's crescent-moon wand for her to take as the teenage witch nervously stepped away from Chopper, Mizore and Kurumu.

Ruby took her wand back gingerly, and though she felt a rush of power from having her magic item in her possession once again, she couldn't muster a shred of satisfaction, joy, or even relief in her expression as she stepped past Tsukune.

Ruby's head swam as she approached Oyakata, wondering what she was going to do when she returned home with the elder witch. The idea of unleashing the hanabake, as she and Oyakata originally intended, was all but unthinkable by now, but how could she make that appeal to Oyakata? Should she just pretend that nothing had happened, and continue to aid and abet the atrocities the witches intended against the humans in the city? She found herself rather frightened of the prospect of telling Oyakata that actually meeting and speaking with a human had changed her opinion, and that she no longer felt that all of humanity was her enemy. Would being taken back under Oyakata's wing restore her antipathy toward the human race, and doom her to another five years of pointless bitterness and loathing?

No answers were forthcoming as she stepped within arm's reach of Oyakata.

The elder witch finally broke her angry expression, her gaze softening as she placed a hand against Ruby's cheek.

"You're safe, Ruby. You're really safe now. I was terrified at what the humans might do to you while you were captured. Just the thought of those awful, treacherous beasts holding you was sheer torment. But you're safe now," the crone said gently.

Ruby lowered her eyes again, away from Oyakata's motherly gaze. Those same eyes had watched humans die for no sin greater than passing too close to the borders of the knoll, and had delighted in their suffering. Ruby's guilt weighed too heavily on her shoulders to enjoy the attention.

"So you're satisfied? Good," Tsukune said, "now let Kouma out of the book."

"Of course," Oyakata snarled, her face instantly shifting into a sneer as she grabbed the leather bindings around the book and ripped them off.

"Emerge, hound of the underworld! Your warden demands your presence!" the crone shouted, holding on to the tome with one hand as it burst open and started shaking in her grip. Flame promptly started spilling out of the pages, causing Ruby to flinch back from the wave of heat.

Tsukune shielded his eyes briefly against the bright flash of light, but once he saw the flames recede into the familiar form of the hellhound, his eyes widened.

Tsukune turned around immediately to address the Protection Committee. "This is a direct order! Nobody laugh!"

He gave his mandate just in time, evidently, as Kana and Kurumu promptly slapped their hands over their mouths, and Yukari pulled her hat down over her head to muffle the noise as her body shook hysterically. Chopper, Moka, and Mizore, having more serious dispositions in general, merely looked away and coughed to disguise the snickering that emerged due to the sight before them.

Tsukune took another moment to ensure that everyone was restraining themselves, and then turned back to Kouma, who sat on his haunches in front of the elder witch.

Around the hellhound's neck was a collar that seemed to be a cloth band that was itself wrapped in a vine. That in itself wasn't particularly funny, and Tsukune found it more worrying than amusing, considering Kouma's pride and aversion to being treated like a pet. The fact that the collar base was a bright neon pink was pretty amusing, as well as an awful choice of color for the accessory, but even that wasn't enough to immobilize most of his Committee with laughter.

No, Yukari was currently in danger of suffocating because Kouma was wearing a large asbestos recovery cone around his neck, as if he had just returned from a procedure with an exceptionally brave vet.

"First, I'm going to murder you," Kouma seethed, his ears flat against his head and his nose pointed down, "and then? After you're dead? I'm going to go to Hell, hunt you down, and murder you AGAIN!"

"He's been nothing but a joy to have around the house," Oyakata said blithely, stepping up next to the hellhound and running a hand down his furry back, "though the fire breath does make it hard for him to fetch the paper."

"All right, that's enough," Tsukune said somewhat nervously. He hadn't expected Oyakata to have taken the time to humiliate Kouma as well as capture him, and was a bit worried that his angriest subordinate might ruin the deal by turning on the crone immediately, "Kouma, come with us. You're free now."

"Aono... Grrrgh..." Kouma winced and groaned, though Tsukune had no idea why. He didn't move from the spot he had been summoned to, either.

"What's wrong, hound? Aren't you going to join your human master?" Oyakata said mockingly, still stroking Kouma's back.

"C-Can't... move..." Kouma growled, trying to glare at Oyakata but having his line of vision blocked by the cone collar.

"What?" Tsukune clenched his teeth and pointed at Oyakata. "What are you waiting for? We had a deal! Let him go!"

"Hmmm... No. I think not," Oyakata said, taking her hand off of the hellhound, "with Ruby safe, I see no reason to obey your orders."

As the Protection Committee swiftly shifted from grins to scowls, the elder witch laughed. "Stupid, STUPID human. I warned you that you would pay for your hubris, did I not?"

"My lady, no!" Ruby shouted, startling the older witch, "you promised!"

"No deal with a human is worth keeping!" Oyakata snapped, "these are the people who kidnapped you, no? Do you think I would just forgive them for that? NEVER!" Her angry expression slowly shifted into a grin. "Instead, I will use their own tools against them!"

The crone slapped Kouma in the flank, and the hellhound released a terrible growl as smoke started to rise from his collar.

"Tools? Kouma is our friend!" Tsukune shouted angrily, stepping forward despite being well within Kouma's fire-breathing range, "we treated Ruby with care and respect, and gave her back safely! And now you're going to force our friend to fight us? Is this the way witches operate? I thought you were supposed to be better than humans! Is this what you're made of?"

Tsukune's plea was answered with a single snort of contempt. "Bargains are made between equals. Vermin like you have no right to complain about-"

"SHUT UP!" Yukari screamed suddenly, startling both Tsukune and the other witches.

The pre-teen girl was on her feet again after having been driven to her knees with laughter, and was even now breathing hard from suppressing it. Her expression, however, had no mirth any more, and her knuckles turned white as she gripped her wand and pointed it angrily at Oyakata. "I'm sick of listening to this! You're a lunatic and a complete hypocrite!" Yukari screeched, causing her allies to take a step forward in surprise.

"I am no hypocrite!" Oyakata snapped, "the humans-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!" Yukari screamed again, causing even Kouma to wince against the noise, "this isn't about humans and witches anymore! You passed that threshold AGES ago!"

She took a deep breath, and then the young witch continued. "You are an OBJECTIVELY, INDEPENDENTLY, HORRIBLE PERSON! Nothing can excuse this behavior! It doesn't matter what the humans are plotting to do or what you're trying to accomplish! The ends can no longer justify the means! First assault, then curses, apparently some murder and maybe torture on the side, all for the sake of genocide, and now you've lied to us in order to indulge in slavery too? You don't even have the decency to completely dominate Kouma so that he isn't acutely aware the whole time he's fighting and killing his allies! What you're doing is completely, indisputably AWFUL, and I'm ashamed to even be the same species as you! You give all witches a bad name!"

Oyakata said nothing, looking irritated at Yukari's complaints. She did seem slightly rattled, however, when Ruby suddenly grabbed onto her shoulder and spoke.

"My lady, they're... they're right," Ruby said desperately, "we've gone too far this time! I want to avenge my parents, to protect our home, and save the land from exploitation, but... not like this!"

"What?" Oyakata looked totally stunned at Ruby's confession, "what are you saying, Ruby?"

"I spoke to Tsukune. I've spoken to others that live alongside him. But most of all, I've had my eyes opened to our own crimes and prejudice. I can't pretend that our actions are somehow justified to stop the humans any longer," Ruby admitted, looking downcast, "we can't murder so many people just to protect the knoll! We can't use Tsukune's friend as a weapon after we agreed to free him!"

"You... You would side with the humans? Against ME?" Oyakata asked breathlessly.

"I don't want to side with the humans! But I can't stand by and watch you do this, either! Please, let's stop this! We'll find some other way to save the knoll!" Ruby begged.

Tsukune was practically chewing his lip as Ruby finished, staring at Kouma.

Finally, Oyakata once again placed a hand on the hellhound's back. "Hound?"

"What?" Kouma grumbled, the slightest glimmer of cautious hope evident in his tone.

"Kill the intruders. All of them," the crone said simply, gesturing to the Protection Committee as Ruby gasped.

"Damn it!" Kouma cursed as he broke into a sprint, dashing straight toward Tsukune with his jaws angling to seize the helpless boy by the throat.

Perhaps it was due to the cone cutting down Kouma's peripheral vision, but he didn't see Chopper move until the troll smashed into his side, throwing Kouma's charge off course and stunning the hellhound as he was sent rolling into the dirt. Chopper's body started to swell as he stood in front of Tsukune, looking uncharacteristically grim as he transformed.

"My lady, no! We have to stop this!" Ruby begged, holding Oyakata's arm more tightly.

The elder witch flung her off, pushing Ruby off her feet and onto her rear. "You disappoint me, Ruby, to fall for the human's trickery so easily. When we are done here I will have to re-educate you in our cause," she said coldly, "for now, sit there and watch. I will show you what happens to those who trifle with witches!"

"No, no, NO!" Tsukune cursed as Kurumu pulled him back, away from where Kouma and Chopper were circling each other, "it wasn't supposed to happen like this! We need to disable Kouma, now!"

"On it," Kana said before taking a deep breath.

Tsukune wasn't exactly sure what she did after that; it looked like she was whistling, but no sound came out.

Whatever it was, though, it was effective. Kouma promptly whimpered and started shaking, his movements becoming clumsy and unsteady as he tried to stay out of arm's reach of Chopper.

"Gotcha now!" Chopper said as he tackled the hellhound, forcing Kouma to the ground.

"Interesting trick," Oyakata admitted as she held one hand out, palm flat, "can you do it with your throat cut?" She snapped her hand upward, a faint green mist following her fingers.

_Thoom! Thoom!_ Kana's dog whistle mimicry broke as the Earth burst upward behind her, startling the siren and showering her with dirt. She was unable to get her breath back when she glanced behind her, seeing two hanabake shaking the dirt from their bodies as they raised their talons to eviscerate her.

_Thwunk!_ Instead, a sword of ice pierced the back of one of the beasts, and Kana stared in terrified shock as several scythe-like talons of ice fell upon the other as Mizore pushed her first target down and sliced apart the head of the second.

"You can fly, right?" Mizore asked blandly as she braced her foot against the first hanabake's back, pulling her weaponized arm out of the wound, "you should probably start flying."

As the ground started to shake underneath them, Kana decided she liked that idea, and her wings burst out of her back as more of the taloned plant-beasts emerged.

Kouma's body, no longer stunned by the awful noise, fell immediately back to its present compulsion, and Kouma's fur began to warm dangerously as Chopper raised a fist above the hellhound's head.

_Fwoof!_ A small burst of flame briefly encompassed Kouma's form, scorching Chopper and causing the troll to flinch for a critical moment. Kouma promptly squirmed free of his grip, smashing his hind legs into the wrestler's tusked face for good measure.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Oyakata chided as she continued making a series of hand gestures, awakening more and more of the hanabake, "bad dog! Keep the fire restricted to aimed projectiles!"

With another sweep of her hand, vines started sprouting beneath Chopper's feet, wriggling free of the loose dirt as more and more hanabake clawed their way free of the sunflower field.

"Die! Die! All you will die!" Oyakata shouted as Kouma bit at Chopper's arm, his saliva searing the troll's flesh and preventing its regeneration, "first you, then the city! Every last human will be snuffed out!"

* * *

A bell rang lightly as Ranma stepped through the front door of the restaurant, alerting the proprietor that she had a customer.

"Be with you in just a second, hon," Ukyou said, not turning toward the door as she mixed a vat of batter behind the counter, "just sit wherever you like."

"Okay, thanks," Ranma said casually, taking his usual spot at the front bar, right in front of the grill, "so, how's business, Ucchan?"

Ukyou froze, her back still facing the door.

Then she whirled around, her hand blurring through the air.

_Clap!_ Ranma slapped his hands together in front of his face, barely stopping the razor-edged aluminum spatula before it split his nose.

"It's nice to see you, too," Ranma deadpanned.

"You jackass! Where the hell have you been?" Ukyou screamed, her hands balled up into fists as her face turned red from an odd mix of fury, embarrassment, and a perhaps a bit of joy, "I haven't seen you in months! And then you just stroll right back into my restaurant like nothing happened?"

"Well, how would you like me to stroll in here?" Ranma quipped sarcastically, "I can do casual, whipped dog, burglar-style-"

Ranma had to tilt his head to the side to avoid another spatula. "Would you quit that? I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Where did you go?" Ukyou groused as she slammed her hands down onto the counter, glaring at the pigtailed boy, "why didn't you say anything to me? I'm your fiancee, damn it!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," Ranma said wearily, twirling the first spatula around in his fingers as his gaze tried to avoid Ukyou's, "it was a schedule thing. I literally had to ship out right after I found out about this school I got into. Didn't Mom say anything?"

"She said you had gone to some school, but she wouldn't tell us anything about it! And you left without a word!" Ukyou complained.

"Yeah, like I said, I'm sorry about that. Couldn't be helped. But I got some time back, so I thought I should stop in and let you know what was going on," the pigtailed boy said, getting aggravated.

Ukyou looked uncertain at first, but as usual she calmed down fairly quickly. "So, a new high school, huh? Where is it?" the chef asked as she started scraping the surface of her grill.

"Another dimension," Ranma said casually, tossing the spatula into the tin where they were stored when not being thrown at people or used for cooking.

"Seriously?"

"That's what they told me," Ranma said with a shrug, "it's hidden away enough that Ryoga hasn't stumbled in there yet, so it makes sense."

"Hidden Chinese fortress, secret island nation, ancient mountain civilization full of bird-people," Ukyou mumbled to herself briefly before sighing, "yeah, okay. I guess I don't really have much grounds to call bull on a school in the Twilight Zone." Then she pursed her lips, "so... do they accept transfers?"

"Ukyou..." Ranma began, sounding uncertain.

"What? Can't I want to go to school with my fiancee?" Ukyou asked defensively, "it's like you've suddenly fallen off the face of the... Right, right. Other dimension, fine. But if I can go with you-"

"Ucchan, there's really no easy way to ask this, so I'll come right out and say it," Ranma said, lacing his fingers together as he stared into her eyes, "are you a monster?"

Ukyou didn't respond right away, staring expressionlessly at Ranma's utterly serious, slightly worried expression.

Then her hand went for the tin holding her spare spatulas. Luckily, Ranma was faster, and picked it up before gingerly putting it back down out of the brunette's immediate reach.

"Am I a MONSTER? What kind of question is that?" Ukyou shouted.

"I'm just making sure, all right? I didn't think you were!" Ranma replied, throwing up his arms, "I figured you were the least likely to be an orc or something so I came to you first! It's a fair question!"

"How is that a fair question?" Ukyou demanded, her face reddening again, "what makes you think I might be a monster?"

"Nothing! Never mind!" Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "let's talk about something else."

Ukyou fumed, but said nothing as she and her fiance stared at each other for several silent, uncomfortable seconds.

"So," Ranma said, trying to sound upbeat, "do you think Tsubasa or Konatsu might be monsters?"

"Get out of my restaurant!"

* * *

_Ding dong!_

Kasumi glanced toward the front door as the doorbell rang, and put down the pot she was washing before she dried her hands.

Walking briskly to the front door, she stopped briefly to straighten her apron before opening it.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?" she asked the curiously pale, cowled man in black robes standing in front of the Tendo household.

"Perhaps. Does a Saotome Genma live at this residence?" Richard asked, his hands clasped behind his back, "I hear he is also known by the moniker 'idiot panda'."

"Yes, he does," Kasumi answered with a smile, "will this be a visit to finalize an engagement agreement, revenge, or are you investigating some sort of criminal activity?"

"Other," Richard said cryptically, "but if I had to choose one, I'd say it definitely involves criminal activity."

"All right then, sir. You can find him inside the dojo at the moment," Kasumi said, stepping aside, "just turn right after you reach the dining room, and it's right there in the yard."

"My thanks, young lady," Richard said politely as he moved past her, his eyes flaring a brilliant white while sparks crackled from his fingertips.

Richard found the dojo easily enough, and his smoldering hands left streaks of black on the door as he opened it, stepping within the confines of the Tendo dojo.

The lone occupant of the room perked up at his presence, its fuzzy ears twitching slightly while its large black nose snorted at the scent of sulfur.

Richard stared at the panda bear lying in the middle of the dojo, noting the sign around its neck claiming that it was "just a cute little panda".

"Yeah, no," the warlock said as he pointed at the black-and-white beast, "what else ya got?"

Green flames that seemed to howl with the screams of tortured men bloomed around Richard's fingers, and the panda's eyes widened in horror as streams of pulsing lighting lashed out at it in a whip of emerald destruction.

_ZOT! Ghzzzzack!_ Great streaks of ash spread across the dojo floor as the hefty beast disintegrated, its body rapidly burning down to scorched bones and smoldering fur.

Within seconds, Richard was staring at a charred bear skeleton, smoke rising from his hands.

"Huh. Weird," Richard mumbled, "that was Saotome's dad, right? I would've thought he'd put up a better fight than that."

_Shthunk!_ A curved blade suddenly pierced the warlock's chest from behind, and he blinked in surprise as a pair of furry, clawed paws seized his head from both sides a moment later.

_Crack!_ Even Richard winced as his neck was snapped like a bread stick, and his body wobbled briefly before it slumped onto the dojo floor.

It was a bit awkward with his head at a ninety-nine degree angle from its normal position, but since he wasn't facing the floor Richard could see that there was a panda bear standing over him. Not that he was an expert on such things, but at a glance Richard considered that this panda actually looked rather different from the one he had just attacked.

"Wait. Did you... Did you actually just use a live panda as a sacrificial decoy? As in a real endangered species?" Richard asked.

"What of it?" Genma asked via sign as his beady eyes stared down at the warlock. He flipped the sign around. "There have been a lot of attempts on my life recently, so I stay prepared."

"I'm just surprised, and honestly a bit impressed," Richard admitted, "I didn't expect such strategic cowardice from a member of Ranma's family."

Genma held up two signs, one in each hand. "Feh! I've forgotten more about cowardice than that boy will ever know!" Then he raised the other one slightly higher. "By the way, who are you and why can you still talk with your neck like that?"

"We haven't done introductions yet, have we?" Richard said still lying on the floor with his head twisted at a grotesque angle, "hello, I'm Richard. I'm a professor at your son's school. I'm here to have a talk with his parents on how your survival may be negatively impacting his performance in class and how I, as a concerned educator, may help rectify that."

Richard's body suddenly shifted despite his broken neck, and Genma flinched as the warlock's hands pointed backwards toward him, their digits blazing green.

_Crack! Crack!_ His hesitation didn't last long, however, as he had the advantageous position and Richard was already within striking range. Genma's powerful ursine claws smashed into the warlock's arms, breaking more bones and causing the limbs to fall limp, unable to aim at their target.

"You're making this way harder than it needs to be," Richard grumbled as his spell fizzled. Genma then pulled the naginata from Richard's back, the blade dripping necrotic ooze, "okay, look, let's start over, shall we? I forgot to roll my perception check before your surprise round, so-"

Richard was cut off as Genma picked up his body and then stuffed it into a sack, tying it off before hoisting it over his shoulder.

"I think it's only fair to warn you, I will be taking this encounter into account when filling out the 'commentary' section on your son's report card," Richard said, his voice somewhat muffled by the sack, "I don't even think you're listening to me," he complained as Genma hauled him out of the dojo and into the yard.

* * *

Kasumi glanced up from the sink as she heard a cracking noise from the dojo.

"Oh, it looks like our guest found him," she said to herself drying her hands on a towel before stepping out of the kitchen into the living room.

She was reasonably surprised to see Ranma there, and extremely surprised to see him rooting through the drawers of a cabinet that held many of Soun's family items, including the family resister, seal, several photo albums, and his daughters' birth certificates. Many of these items were now piled on the floor next to Ranma as the pigtailed boy flipped through a photo album full of the Tendo sisters' baby pictures.

Ranma noticed her entry immediately, and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Hey Kasumi. You're looking well. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Kasumi answered by reflex, clasping her hands together, "er... Ranma? What are you doing back? I didn't know you were coming."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I suddenly got the opportunity, and dark wizards apparently don't carry cell phones," Ranma admitted as he reached the end of the album and closed it, "I wanted to drop by and say hello, since I know I left all of a sudden without telling anyone but Mom."

"Are you enjoying your new school?" Kasumi asked innocently, though her eyes kept glancing at all of the things that Ranma was looking through.

"It took some getting used to, but yeah, it's all right," Ranma said as he unrolled the scroll containing the family register, scanning the paper for any suspicious names, "how have things been here?"

"Well, it's been a little boring, I suppose. It's rather quiet without you around, and Akane seems..." Kasumi trailed off before she said "bitter" or "morose". "Well, she hasn't been as lively as she usually is."

"Is she here? I should say hi while I'm stopping in," Ranma said as he finished with the register, rolling it up again.

"Well, she and Nabiki are eating out for lunch, but they should be back before long," Kasumi hesitated before her curiosity finally pushed her to ask the obvious question, "Ranma, why are you looking through our family records?"

"I'm just making sure everything checks out," Ranma said with a self-assured nod as he started putting the books and albums back in the cabinet, "nothing like pictures of strange pets, ritual sacrifices, an egg mound, stuff like that. I also wanted to make sure you, Akane, and Nabiki really are related."

"Oh. Uh..." Kasumi didn't really know what to say to that. Her first line of reasoning was to ask why Ranma might think to find such strange things in the family's pictures, but decided that she probably didn't want or need to know. "Did you think my sisters weren't related to me?"

"It crossed my mind sometimes; you all ARE pretty different," Ranma shrugged as he put the last file away and closed the cabinet, "but everything looks legit, so there's nothing to worry about."

Before Kasumi could spend much more time being confused at Ranma's actions, a sign zipped through the air from the direction of the yard, smashing into the pigtailed boy's head and bowling him over.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ranma shouted as he stood up and whirled around.

Genma stood at the edge of the porch, glaring at Ranma as he hefted a sack over his shoulder. "Boy! Where have you been? How dare you abandon your fiancee like that!" he said via sign.

"Oh, give it a rest," Ranma scoffed, "I had to go to this school since I was booted out of Furinkan, okay? It's not like I wanted to leave Nerima!" Honestly he was completely ambivalent about it, but Genma didn't need to know that.

"No excuses!" Genma proclaimed on another sign before flipping it over, "it's time I had a long talk with you about fulfilling your responsibilities like a man!"

With that, Genma dumped an armful of signs out onto the floor before raising another one into the air. "I have to go take out this trash now, so you just read those while I'm gone."

"Sure, Pop. Whatever you say," Ranma said blandly, rolling his eyes as the cursed panda walked out into the yard.

"I wonder what happened to that man from earlier? He was here to talk to Uncle Saotome," Kasumi said with concern.

"Looks to me like he bit off more than he could chew," Ranma said with a shrug, "I told him Pops was no pushover."

Before either of them could dwell on that, they heard the front door open and a familiar voice call out.

"Kasumi, we're back!" called out Akane as she and Nabiki entered, taking off their shoes.

Ranma quickly ran through his options as far as a greeting was concerned; he had tried a casual approach with Ukyou, since they were good friends, and even with her it had fallen flat. Akane was far more temperamental than Ukyou, and he couldn't even hope to get away with an overly-friendly approach, even if she was in a good mood.

"Kasumi, I have some leftovers for..." Akane trailed off as she entered the living room, seeing Kasumi standing next to Ranma. Nabiki entered after her, quirking an eyebrow as noticed that the Tendos' youngest long-term house guest was back.

"Akane! Hi! I missed you!" Ranma said awkwardly, forcing a smile as he spread his arms wide. "Hug?"

* * *

_WHAM!_ Nodoka fell to one side as the house shook, its long-abused foundation resisting this newest strain somewhat poorly.

She sat up again immediately, frowning at the sudden disturbance. It was almost certainly Akane, as she still had her little outbursts regularly, but the shock wave didn't feel right for Happousai, who was usually the victim of her wrath (or rightful judgment, depending on who you asked). The old lecher had very little mass, and tended to burst through the wall without disturbing the rest of the house too much. This newest vibration was definitely much heavier, but still seemed familiar.

Standing up and moving to the window, her eyes lit up as she saw her son lying in a pile of shattered drywall and splintered wood. "Ranma! You're back! What a pleasant surprise!"

She could hear Akane shouting something below about Ranma's disappearance, but disregarded it; the girl had been slightly subdued ever since Ranma had left, so it was only natural she'd be a tad emotionally confused at his sudden and unexpected arrival.

Ranma picked himself up out of the debris, shaking the dust out of his hair as he did so. It had been a long time since he had been put through a wall, but he felt no fondness or nostalgia from the sensation.

"Hey Mom, I'll be up in a minute," Ranma said as he brushed off his pants.

"Are you even listening to me? What do you have to say for yourself?" Akane demanded, her cheeks red with fury, "leaving without telling anyone and then just strolling in unannounced! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I left in a hurry without telling anyone and since I happened to be in the neighborhood, that I should explain that," Ranma said irritably, "so do you wanna listen, or are you satisfied with just decking me on sight?'

Akane bristled at the reproach in Ranma's voice. "Whatever! It's not like I care where you go to school! It's actually been pretty peaceful without having you around all the time!"

A vein pulsed on Ranma's forehead. "Well, it sounds like you've got all the important details, so I guess we're done here," he snapped, "I'll be on break when winter rolls around, so I can stop by then, though I can't imagine why I'd bother."

Akane and Nabiki seemed slightly surprised at the bitter rebuttal, though neither of them said anything as Ranma vaulted up to the second-story window.

"Well, if you decide you are coming back, let me know over the phone!" Kasumi called, "that way I'll know how many to shop for!"

"Ever the diplomat, aren't you, sis?" Nabiki asked, sarcasm thick on her tongue.

"Well, it's just hard to plan a menu on a budget otherwise," Kasumi fretted, afraid that her request had been seen as rude.

"I wasn't talking to you," Nabiki deadpanned, glancing at a surprised Akane.

* * *

"My son! It's so good to see you again!" Nodoka said as Ranma dropped into the room, embracing the pigtailed boy happily.

"You're the first person to actually say that," Ranma grunted as he hugged her back, "I know it was rude to leave for school without telling everyone, but they don't have to attack me for it."

"Oh, don't mind the poor girl," Nodoka said with a smile on her face, "I'm sure she's very frustrated, not having had your companionship for so long."

"As far as I can tell, my companionship has never made her less frustrated," Ranma said, dropping to the floor cross-legged.

Nodoka frowned as she saw Ranma brooding. "Son, is something the matter? How is your new school treating you?"

"It's treating me pretty well, actually," Ranma said as his mother sat down in front of him, "it's just... I've learned some things since I've gone there that have..."

He trailed off as he considered his words carefully, growing anxious. "Well, I really didn't want to have to ask this question, Mom. Honestly, I think it's pretty stupid, but I have to make sure."

As Nodoka raised an eyebrow, Ranma took a deep breath. "I'm human, right? You and Pop are both humans, putting aside his panda curse, so I am too. Right?"

Nodoka looked stunned by the question. "Ranma... why would you ask that?" she asked.

"It's just, Youkai Academy is literally a YOUKAI Academy," Ranma said nervously, "the entire student body is composed of monsters that take human form, except me and this other guy. So... I guess it's just made me a little confused about... stuff."

Nodoka pursed her lips as Ranma finished speaking, and then took a firm hold of Ranma's shoulders.

"I'll be honest, my son. I never thought we'd have to have this conversation," Nodoka admitted cautiously as Ranma's eyes widened, "I know that you'd been exposed to the supernatural in the past, but I didn't think you'd be in a position to deal with them as peers. I would have told you more if I'd known about what kind of place Youkai Academy was."

'No. No way. This is NOT happening,' Ranma thought, his body practically paralyzed as Nodoka took a deep breath and continued.

"Ranma, I know that you're probably confused, being exposed to monsters disguised as humans and mingling with them. I was too at first, when I found out about it, and I too was confused about my... relationship with non-human races."

'Please, no. Don't do this to me, God,' Ranma thought, 'don't you dare let her tell me that I've lived my entire life as the wrong damn SPECIES.'

"Ranma," Nodoka said firmly, gripping the boy's shoulders as she stared into his eyes, "no matter what anyone says or what kind of expectations society presents to you, I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with love between a human and a non-human!"

Ranma's fearful, expectant expression promptly shattered. "Say what?"

"Just because you're human doesn't mean that you absolutely have to date another human," Nodoka insisted, "I know that it may seem strange, developing feelings for a creature hiding its true form behind a shell of illusions, and in some cases it's wise to show some discrimination, but if your heart develops feelings for a monster, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

'Thank you, God,' Ranma thought hesitantly, 'actually, wait, let's not thank you too quickly. This might still be pretty awful.'

"Thanks Mom, but why exactly do you know about this sort of thing?" Ranma asked. "I thought it was supposed to be a big secret."

"Oh, please," Nodoka scoffed, "the youkai have never been as stealthy and mysterious as they like to think they are. Though it surprises me that they have a whole high school devoted to them now. Back in my day they sent monsters that wanted to integrate to human high schools, and the monster either did its best or was picked off by the local devil hunters in short order."

She sighed. "I still remember when I saw a satyr for the first time. Damos was so handsome, yet so timid, and whenever we would kiss he would-"

"WOAH, okay, great, you can stop talking about that now," Ranma said quickly, not wanting to hear about his mother's past romances, "you dated other species? Seriously?"

"Of course! Most of them insisted on keeping their human form all the time, so it wasn't that different from dating another human, although there are certainly some very interesting things you can try depending on the species. Don't be afraid to experiment!"

As Ranma stared slack-jawed at his mother, she frowned. "But as I said, there are some sorts that you should always be wary of, regardless of how pretty they are in human form. Greenskins are just terrible people, and find it impossible to commit, for an example. Also, going out with a vampire is always a bad idea, no matter how romantic it seems in the novels."

"Ugh, tell me about," Ranma said, releasing his shock as he found a topic he had some experience in, "this guy I know is crushing on one. She treats him like a lunch tray. One day, I swear, those bite wounds are going to get infected."

"Yes, well, you should look out for him then, the nosferatu are always doing strange, awful things with their mates, turning them into thralls and awful creatures. When they're not just exsanguinating them entirely," Nodoka shook her head gently, and then smiled again, "but enough about that. I'm glad we had this little talk."

"I'm... uh..." Ranma seemed at a loss for words as his mother stood up, "well, it could've been worse."

"Are you going to stay for dinner?"

Ranma shook his head as he hopped to his feet. "Nah. I wanna know if the old freak is some sorta gremlin, so I'd better start looking for him."

"I hope not," Nodoka said with a grimace, "I'd hate to think what sort of rituals he would be using all those panties for."

"Right... See you later, Mom."

* * *

_Whoom!_ Chopper's fists descended like hammers, forcing Kouma to dart to the side lest he be crushed by the troll's mighty blows. Hanabake beasts that were anywhere nearby were staggered by the shock wave, and one such beast that tripped too close to the massive wrestler found itself seized by the head and flung as a makeshift projectile.

Kouma jumped over the thrown monster, letting it crash into a few more behind him. The hellhound crept warily just outside of Chopper's lunging range, waiting for the opportune time to attack.

"Ya know, I've always wanted ta fight you," Chopper said as he scratched at a set of cauterized bite marks on his arm that were not healing as usual, "not like this, maybe, but a real match."

"I'm a fire-breather," Kouma snapped as sparks started leaking from his jaws, "do you think you could win?"

Chopper snorted. "If I only fight people I can easily beat, I'll never get stronger!"

With that, Chopper grabbed a nearby log that was laying on the ground and flung it at the hellhound, charging in recklessly behind it.

Kouma reacted as defensively as his command collar would allow, ducking under the log and then jumping away as Chopper's fists flailed at him. One of the blows clipped him in the side, but surprisingly it barely hurt as Kouma landed easily from his evasion and gained some more distance.

"Going a bit easy on me, aren't you?" Kouma mused, his jaws flaring before he blasted a small fire bolt at the troll.

Chopper side-stepped the projectile and grabbed another hanabake that was scratching at his shins though it was hardly accomplishing anything besides ruining his pants. "I gotta. Captain says it 'aint right to go all-out on people who didn't decide to fight me. Wouldn't want you to lose one of those nice, sharp fangs for the crone's sake, yeah?"

Kouma blinked, honestly surprised by the sentiment, although a burning sensation at his throat soon compelled him to attack once more, the rapidly spreading phantom pains protesting at the lull in battle.

"Besides, you seem to be holdin' back yerself. You've barely scorched me so far!" Chopper taunted, charging forward.

* * *

Kurumu grunted as her claws entered the back of another hanabake, and then she drew them out in a wide arc that slashed two others that had been charging at her. One went down with a gurgling screech, the other merely shaken by its wound, but before the survivor could recover to any extent a razor-edged card lodged in its head, bowling it over and taking it out of the fight.

"Tsukune, I think we need a plan, here!" Kurumu warned as three more hanabake started to break free of the dirt to replace the three just dispatched. Her breathing was hard and sweat stuck her shirt to her torso, but she kept her breath steady and her wings folded so as not to waste extra energy on drag; one of the small combat tips that Ranma had given her during their infrequent chats. It had surprised her that he could so easily think of combat lessons for someone he had only ever fought once (and very briefly at that) with a significantly different anatomy and weapon focus, but no aspect of melee fighting seemed to escape the Committee's vice-captain.

Recalling another of his suggestions, she snapped her wings open and leapt, using them to vault herself forward into a mighty pounce toward one of the emerging hanabake rather than actually taking flight.

Thwunk! Her scalpel-sharp nails stabbed easily into the surprised floral beast as the rest of its body cushioned her descent, smashing it back into the hole of loose dirt as it yelped. Pulling her hands free, she opened up the hanabake next to it while it was still disoriented from being pelted by bits of dirt. The one on the other side had time to move, but it made a poor decision and tried to dart behind the succubus to attack. A wing smacked it in the face as Kurumu turned, disorienting it for a critical moment before pointed nails stabbed into its back and pushed it back the ground where it had spawned.

Sap dripped down Kurumu's nails as the plant-beast quivered, but she paid neither the dying flora nor her quickly deteriorating manicure another thought as a half-dozen more hanabake struggled to the surface.

* * *

"Shoot! What can we do?" Tsukune groused, hearing Kurumu's plea but seeing no obvious answers to their current difficulties. Between Mizore, Kurumu, and Yukari the hanabake were being contained with surprising ease and efficiency, but Tsukune could see that their numbers were growing too quickly for that to last so long as Chopper was busy fighting and Kouma was under Oyakata's control. He had thought that if he could get to Kana he could get her to stun Kouma again with whatever she had done before, but evidently the siren had been severely spooked by the hanabake's attack; she had retreated to a tall tree and was cowering there, holding her wings close and covering her ears to keep out the sounds of combat as well as Tsukune's requests for help.

Moka was with him, as usual, though she kept quiet. She could think of an easy way out of this situation, or at the very least a way to tilt it much further in their favor, but she hesitated to bring it up, even at a time like this.

_'So, you just let me know when everyone's ready for me to come out and save them all,'_ the voice in Moka's rosario said casually, as if it was settling down for a nap, _'it'll be nice to be out again. I just wish Ranma were here so that I could show him up, too.'_

Tsukune grimaced, turning away from the willow tree where Kana was hiding. "Yukari! We need to free Kouma! Is there anything you can tell me about that collar?"

Yukari loosed another trio of cards, focusing her mind through her wand to manipulate their paths through the air. Each one sunk deep into the leg carapace of a freshly emergent hanabake, crippling them instantly before sending them staggering to the ground.

"Not much! I mean, it's obviously a control device, but a compulsion type, not a full mind control thing! If he was being fully dominated he wouldn't even be able to talk back!"

"But how can we remove it?" Tsukune asked, stepping back as Mizore dashed by him to fight another group of floral soldiers.

"Well, it's not indestructible!" Yukari said as she cut down a hanabake making a charge on her. With a wave of her wand, several cards that had already been thrown suddenly took to the air as if swept up in a gust of wind, collecting around her and settling in an upraised palm. "I mean, I doubt that recovery cone is JUST to humiliate him. Without it he might instinctively start gnawing at the collar and damage it before his magical programming forces him to stop."

Tsukune chewed his lip briefly. "I don't suppose you could cut it off with a card?"

"The collar or his esophagus? I don't think my control is fine enough to manage one without the other," the young witch said uncertainly.

"Then maybe Chopper could just tear it off?" Tsukune thought aloud.

"Oh, by all means, go ahead and try," Oyakata said, startling them as she approached from behind a pair of hanabake clawing their way free of the dirt, "I would enjoy seeing if the Dominion Band's curse could slay a troll."

The elder witch was surrounded by lashing, thorn-covered vines, the tendrils curling and whipping about her like the tentacles of some frenetic octopus. In her hands she clutched the Book of Fur and Talon tightly to her chest as she grinned.

"To touch the collar recklessly is a death sentence, human. But by all means, try it out for yourself! Or you could try to destroy this book," Oyakata said, tapping the tome in her hand.

At Tsukune's suspicious look, the crone chuckled bitterly. "Of course, that would unleash the curse upon the hound himself. What to do, what to do..."

"Like we can trust her!" Yukari snapped, summoning more cards to her hand, "let's go for it, Tsukune!"

She flung a few cards at Oyakata, but the elder witch blew them away with a mild gust of wind, making a gesture that could only be considered dismissive.

The hanabake started bearing down on Tsukune and Moka, but Mizore leapt on one of them, cutting it down instantly before carving into the next. It didn't seem like she would get any free shots at Oyakata, however, as the crone started to back away again to allow more of her plant soldiers forward.

"Fight until you're exhausted, surrender, or kill your friend in your hopeless struggle. It's all the same to me," Oyakata said with a shrug as leaves and feathers began to swirl around her in a cyclone, "you will suffer, in body and mind, for corrupting my precious Ruby! You will DIE for intruding upon our lands! Human, monster, not even other witches will be spared if they would stand with you wretched barbarians!"

Oyakata seemed to fade away behind the obscuring debris, and Tsukune rubbed his forehead in frustration. "There has to be something we can do! Chopper can't last much longer against..."

He trailed off. Chopper was actually doing fairly well, now that he thought about. Why was that?

At a glance, Kouma seemed to be holding back substantially. He had chalked that up to Kouma resisting Oyakata's mind control as best he could, but now that he considered it, Oyakata herself had verbally warned him against using his flames haphazardly.

As Tsukune stood silent, Moka bit her lip. 'All right, we have no choice. Let's get Tsukune to undo the seal.' Her thoughts were regretful, and somewhat bitter about the possibility. She had, after all, lectured her inner self about how they didn't need her and how unwelcome her malevolent attitude was, and asking for help now was sure to prompt a great deal of smug taunting in her head for a long time afterward.

_'About time you saw reason,'_ Evil Moka said, _'although it looks to me like Tsukune's already seen it.'_

To Moka's surprise, Tsukune suddenly clapped his hands on her shoulders. "Moka! I have an idea!"

"Right," she said, nodding nervously, "we can't waste any more time."

"Exactly! So stay here and try to coax Kana out of the tree, okay?" the human boy asked, "I need to speak to Yukari right away, and it would help my plan if Kana was up and flying."

Moka was fairly stunned as he suddenly bolted away from her, not having so much as brushed the Rosario.

_'Okay, you know what? I admit it: I may have gone overboard with walloping the pigtailed dolt. But do you morons have to be SO determined to keep me locked up that you'll risk certain death rather than letting me out when Ranma isn't even around?'_ Moka complained bitterly.

'It does seem like the situation is a little desperate to completely ignore you,' Moka said tepidly. Although she wanted to put her faith in Tsukune's strategies, what could he do with their two strongest fighters out of action and their third strongest turned against them?

_'When we die, make sure your last words are "I told you so!"'_

'But I didn't tell them anything!'

_'I hate our life.'_

* * *

Kouma darted past massive, flailing fists as Chopper charged at him again, his own substantial body moving with surprising agility as the hellhound searched for a good spot on the troll's back to strike.

In an instant, he found one, jumping at Chopper's arm before sinking his teeth deep into the wrestler's shoulder.

"GYAH! Dammit, that burns!" Chopper complained as he dropped to the ground, striking that shoulder into the ground to try and pin Kouma.

It didn't quite work, although the hellhound's jaws were jarred loose, forcing Kouma to back away again lest the larger monster grab him.

Chopper quickly stood up again, grimacing as he felt a persistent pain in his shoulder that would severely restrict his grappling.

Not that he had been doing very well before. In his hellhound form, Kouma was extremely agile, and in this particular fight he was being so cautious that it proved nearly impossible to do more than defend himself.

'First Saotome and now Gamaroshi... I need more practice to catch these chumps,' the troll groused.

Seeing a nearby hanabake start to dig its way out of the ground, Chopper almost casually plucked the confused beast's head from the dirt, and then he grasped the creature at both ends.

_CRACK!_ The hanabake made a wooden cracking sound, not unlike the sound of a nut being broken open, as Chopper twisted it in half.

"How long we gotta play this game?" Chopper asked as sap oozed over his hands, and then he threw the remains of the plant beast aside like a discarded wrapper.

"Until you guys get serious and take me or the crone out!" Kouma growled, slowly circling his opponent, "Aono can't half-ass this fight! And believe me when I say that I'd rather die to have the hag stopped than survive to see her plan succeed!"

Chopper slathered his wounded shoulder in the cool, sticky sap from the hanabake, instantly feeling some of the pain lessen as Kouma's saliva was cooled and neutralized by the vegetable goop. "Aw, c'mon, we 'aint gonna kill ya. The Captain will think of somethin'."

"And what has the human done so far to earn your confidence?" Oyakata demanded as a wind blew past Kouma, battering his flank with dry leaves and feathers. In moments the elder witch was behind her captured servant, scowling at Chopper, "even now, he hides behind you while you struggle and bleed uselessly! Why would you obey such a coward?"

"YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING US STRUGGLE AND BLEED!" snarled Kouma, his dagger-like teeth clenched tight.

Chopper shrugged. "Eh, I don't really mind. The little guy has some cool ideas."

"Pitiful," Oyakata said simply, pointing at the troll, "hound, no more playing. Seize the creature by the throat and tear it out, so that you may move on to the rest of these fools."

Kouma's body bolted forward despite his mental protests, and he leapt straight for Chopper's face with his fangs bared.

Which was very nearly the worst move he could have made, not that he had any choice.

Knowing exactly where his opponent would strike for, Chopper struck the hellhound out of the air with a perfectly-timed backhand, eliciting a pained yelp from Kouma as the hellbeast hit the ground hard as a result. In the next moment Chopper was on top of him, holding the hellhound down by his neck and back.

"I don't know any holds for dogs, but I'm sure I can work something out," said the wrestler, his tusks shifting as he grinned.

Oyakata snorted, being treated to the sight of the troll's massive, unprotected back. "If you want a job done right..." she mumbled, pointing to Chopper as many of the vines around her stiffened and straightened into barbed spears.

"Hey, old hag! Why don't pick on someone your own size?" yelled an unfamiliar, cocksure voice from behind the struggle.

Kouma and Chopper both froze, startled by the voice. Oyakata glanced over at the source, scowling.

She was very displeased to see yet another stranger stalking forward through the bits of torn sunflower and chunks of hanabake. He appeared to be another human boy, though Oyakata supposed that didn't mean much when it came to her current foes.

"Ranma! You're back!" Tsukune shouted, looking breathless as he ran up behind the taller boy, "listen, that witch is trying-"

"No time!" Ranma declared, glaring at the elder witch, "whatever your problem is, I'm going... to..."

The pigtailed boy trailed off, and Oyakata quirked an eyebrow as the newcomer's gaze locked onto Kouma.

"Yes? You're going to what?" Oyakata asked blandly.

Ranma didn't seem to be listening, however, as his eyes were bugging out while staring at Kouma.

"You... What... Collar..." he tried to stifle an onset of giggles at the sight of the hellhound's recovery cone, but it was clearly a losing battle. Before the dam burst, and Ranma literally collapsed onto his knees as he howled with laughter.

"Wa ha ha ha ha! What the hell happened to you, man? Did Tsukune take you to the Hellvet?" he asked, clenching his teeth to reduce his laughter to mere giggles.

Tsukune winced. "Wait, Ranma, it's not his fault. The witch did that to him after he was captured!"

Chopper couldn't help but notice that Kouma had completely stopped struggling. Despite this, the canine's body hadn't relaxed at all, and the troll felt a definite sense of foreboding overshadowing his gleeful battle-lust. "Um, guys?"

Ranma wasn't paying attention, however, as he lapsed into another laughing fit. "Are you SERIOUS? He lost to that old lady?" The pigtailed boy was gasping now as his body shook with mirth. "And the collar! Oh God! The pink is just too perfect!"

"Yow!" Chopper let go of Kouma in a hurry as he felt the hellhound's body temperature rise dramatically.

Oyakata also noticed, and she looked alarmed as the air around and above Kouma started to shimmer and distort, like hot air rising from a stove. "No! Stop that! Heel!"

"Ha ha HAH! She told him to heel!" Ranma shouted, rolling onto his back and kicking his feet. "It's too much! Make it stop!"

Chopper was now actively running away from Kouma, and Oyakata was starting to back away as well as she realized her commands had no effect. "I said heel! Bad dog! Are you listening to me?"

Tsukune gulped as he started backing away from Ranma. "Uh, okay, Ranma, I think he's had enough." The pigtailed boy seemed not to hear him in his fit of hysteria, although Tsukune was sure he was perfectly aware that something bad was happening. Tsukune could feel the air warming rapidly despite being farther away from Kouma, and the ground felt like it was trembling slightly. "Really, you can stop now."

"No! Wait!" Ranma cried, managing to push himself up onto his hands and knees, "someone get me a camera! I have to have a picture of this! It's too good!"

Oyakata continued shouting demands, but Kouma didn't hear them; to him her voice was a distant foghorn straining to be heard in a storm. He had suffered greatly in the past several hours, and all of that pent-up fury seemed to be rushing to the fore at once as magical compulsion and emotional gratification suddenly found a single, perfect outlet, reinforcing each other rather than struggling against each other. Everything else was forgotten as his red eyes stared at the pigtailed boy rolling atop the broken bodies of hanabake and chunks of upturned dirt, and he felt as if the sun itself was burning in his chest as he saw the pleasure and joy his humiliation had brought.

"Or maybe, like, get me a pencil and paper, and I can just DRAW it," Ranma said as he finally found the strength to sit up, wiping the tears from his eyes, "I'll make it an art piece and everything! Think I'll call it 'Neutered'."

Kouma did not speak words or think words in reply, because there were no words. Even the most vile phrases of the fell denizens of the underworld seemed completely inadequate. Only action, the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bone, and the incineration of life could possibly express the current depths of his hatred.

And in that instant, Kouma's fury exploded.

* * *

Ryoga turned his head away as a sudden flare of light in the distance nearly blinded him, as if the sun itself had appeared over the buildings of Nerima.

Confused and disoriented, he squinted as he turned back toward the direction that the light had come from, somewhere to the south, but saw nothing but the empty streets of Nerima, exactly as they had been before.

"Geez, what was that?" asked Ranma, glancing behind him as the light vanished. He had been facing Ryoga at the time while squatting atop a chain-link fence, but had seen his own shadow suddenly stretch out before him when Ryoga flinched.

"I think it was an explosion... but I don't see any smoke or a dust cloud," Ryoga murmured, staring at his best guess as to the origin of the flare. Then he remembered what Ranma had just asked him and immediately forgot about the mysterious disturbance. "Wait, forget that! What did you mean, asking if I'm a monster?"

"Look, it's a fair question," Ranma said, shrugging, "if anyone around here is secretly some kind of demon, it's gotta be you. The fangs, the inhuman endurance, and there's no way someone with human smarts could get so lost in a two story house that they've lived in off and on for a year."

Ranma jumped away as Ryoga's fist ripped through the fence, tearing the steel links like so many strips of paper.

"Plus, you know how sometimes you tell me that you've seen Hell because of me? Is that because you have to go home and train after you lose?" Ranma asked as he balanced on a post box.

"It's an expression, you idiot! I'm no monster!" Ryoga shouted, a vein bulging on the side of his head.

Ranma frowned, staring down at Ryoga as the larger boy growled and shook his fist at his nemesis. "Okay, fine... But are you SURE? I just heard that it's not that rare for humans to hook up with monsters, so do you know for CERTAIN that both your folks..."

Ranma trailed off as Ryoga started to glow green, and promptly decided that he was now satisfied by Ryoga's answer. "All right, you seem pretty sure!" he said as he leapt up to the nearest rooftop, "catch ya later, Porky!"

Ranma had to dodge a ki bolt on his way down the street, but within seconds he was far beyond any hope of Ryoga might have had of tracking him down. Not that he was afraid of fighting Ryoga by any means, but he hadn't returned to Nerima just to settle back into the same old grudges he'd left behind.

Besides, Ranma knew that it was annoying being asked to confirm your own species. He just had to make sure.

"Lessee... I'd rather not tempt fate by asking the Kunos, so that just leaves the Amazons, and..." as he scanned the horizon, Ranma could make out a tiny speck bouncing from roof to roof in the distance.

"Gotcha!"

Happousai hummed pleasantly to himself as he leapt from roof to roof, his sack of liberated underthings bobbing behind his head.

It had been easy pickings as of late, to the point that he felt a lingering sense of dissatisfaction with his favorite "hobby". While the residents of Nerima had long known that there was a nigh-unstoppable underwear thief around, Happousai was, well, nigh-unstoppable. Hiding places were inevitably found, traps sprung with no effect, and angry mobs could only devote so much of their time to sprinting after someone who was able to leap entire houses at will. It had gotten so bad that many women apparently budgeted for lingerie shopping along with their groceries as a set of weekly expenses, and buying in bulk had likewise become very popular among Happousai's victims. Those that refused to back down in their gender's war against Happousai had apparently adopted a "scorched Earth" policy of wearing men's boxers and chest bindings rather than women's underwear, and Happousai honestly had to applaud their grit in going so far to deprive him. But there were always other victims, and never anyone who could stand up to him.

So why did he feel so... dissatisfied? Now that he had everything he wanted and no one dared or bothered to stand in his way, why did he feel such sense of loss?

"Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can hear something in the back of my mind," the old lecher said to himself as he alighted atop a church's steeple and stared out at the city skyline, "a voice speaking to me, like the comforting words of an old friend."

"Hey! Freak! Heads up!"

Happousai frowned. "Well, that's close I guess, but I was hoping they'd be more comforting than that."

_Bwack!_ Before the ancient pervert could grasp what was going on, a swift kick in the side sent him flying in a practiced arc as his bag went tumbling out of his grasp.

_CLONG!_ The church bell rang as Happousai smashed into it, and the tiny martial arts master bounced off and onto the floor of the church's bell tower floor, the ringing in his skull every bit equal to the ringing outside it.

Ranma took a moment to tear open the sack Happousai was carrying and pin it on the church steeple, allowing the contents to pile out in the wind in a fluttering torrent.

He gave a brief thought as to whether it might cause any problems for a load of stolen underthings to be scattered all over the front of a church.

"Nah, they'll be fine," the pigtailed man scoffed, wondering why the thought even occurred to him, "Tsukune must be rubbing off on me or something."

As Ranma approached Happousai, he was actually rather surprised (and a little weirded out) when the old lecher brightened at the sight of him rather than getting angry at the loss of the day's loot.

"Ranma, m'boy! You're back! You're really back!" Happousai cheered, throwing his stubby arms up into the air, "you disappeared so suddenly! We didn't know when you'd show again!"

"Yeah, uh... Sorry? I guess?" Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "Old school kicked me out, so I had to go to this new one."

"So you won't be staying?" Happousai asked, just the barest hint of disappointment tinging his voice.

"No, I'm just stopping by long enough to really regret it," Ranma said with a sigh, "so what's with you?"

"Oh, you know, the usual routine. Health is good, but the commutes are getting longer," Happousai explained, as if he were discussing his actual job, "I'm thinking I might have to start taking the train. But who wants to deal with the crowds, you know?"

"So... you aren't mad that I tossed your stolen goods?" Ranma asked, understandably perplexed.

"What, those things? Pah! I have so many nowadays that I don't even know where I'd store the new ones! Hell, I suppose I only bother stealing more out of habit! I'm almost glad you took those back!"

'I greet my fiancees to explain why I left and apologize, and they try to beat my skull in. I find Happousai, kick him into a wall of metal and liberate his stolen goods, and he's chatting to me like an old buddy from work,' Ranma thought miserably, 'humans or not, these people are all freaks.'

"So, how's your new school? Any cute girls?" Happousai asked with an excited leer.

"Yeah, sure. Quick question, freak: are you a monster?" Ranma asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Nope. Totally human," Happousai answered.

Ranma was silent for several seconds before he spoke again. "Nope? That's it? No angry rebuttal? No sarcasm? No suspicions? No questions as to why I asked?"

"Well, I get that question a lot," Happousai reasoned, blinking, "you're not even the first person to ask me that today. Well, really it's more like it was screamed at me than 'asked'. And it was more of an accusation than a question."

"Of course..." Ranma grumbled, slowly turning around. It was strange, but somehow the further along he went in confirming that he was right, the worse he felt, "well, I'll see you some other time."

"Wait! Don't go so soon! You just got here!" the elderly pervert cried, running up to him, "tell me all about your new coeds! I mean, school! Hey, did you see that huge flash of light from earlier?"

"Not now. I've gotta finish up here and then meet up with a bunch of my friends before they get killed by witches," Ranma explained as he leapt away from the bell tower.

* * *

Tsukune struggled to his feet, his eyes squeezed shut from the flare of light that had threatened to blind him. The air was much warmer now, almost suffocating in its intensity, and he could feel the ground underneath him tremble from energies he could barely comprehend.

This hadn't been part of the plan. Well, not exactly. Tsukune knew that Kouma was very powerful and very easy to agitate, but had completely underestimated both traits. Just what kind of damage was Kouma capable of when enraged?

Hesitantly, the young human slowly cracked his eyelids open to find out.

Witch's Knoll, already trampled and pockmarked with divots from the skirmish between the hanabake and Protection Committee, now had much of the surrounding field completely flattened from a shock wave of hot air. Smoke wreathed the formerly clear sky, dark but for the reflected lights from dancing flames and glowing red seams that were even now slowly creeping through the ground of the blast site.

"Okay, yeah, that's not good," Tsukune mumbled as he turned his attention toward Kouma and the figure that had provoked this devastation.

Yukari, still covered by her illusion spell to look like Ranma, had fallen down from the blast and was clearly just as disoriented as Tsukune was. She was also in far, far more danger than he was.

In the middle of the field, forming up the center of the the blast zone, the seams of lava had grown and spread, meeting each other in the shape of a glowing pentagram. Sparks of lightning the color of fresh blood lashed around the circumference as an enormous pyre grew higher and higher in the center of the unholy conflagration, and Tsukune could swear he heard a choir of distant voices chanting fake Latin in the background.

In the middle of the tower of flame was dark, four legged shape, its eyes glittering crimson.

"Kouma!" Tsukune shouted, starting to run toward him.

_BWOOM!_ An explosion detonated in front of him, showering the surprised teenager with dirt as the ground seemed to vomit soil and flame.

"Sreeeee!" A hanabake tumbled to the ground, wailing, its scorched body trailing smoke as it died as quickly as it emerged.

"Wh-What? What was that?" Tsukune asked, stunned.

_BWOOM! BWOOM!_ Two more explosions occurred nearby, followed by a trio of more distant ones behind the tower of flame. Each one spat a smoking hanabake corpse into the air as the tendrils of lava spread underground, seeping into the hanabake's subterranean pockets and igniting the bubbles of oxygen that had been created during their sleeping photosynthesis.

Within moments the tempo of explosions had increased, the surrounding field coming apart from below as the death screams of dozens of plant beasts filled the air and forced the scattered members of the Protection Committee to take cover.

"Kouma! Stop!" Tsukune shouted again, to no apparent effect.

Yukari unsteadily got to her feet among the detonations behind her, and she gulped as she stared into the glowing red eyes of the hound that stood at the epicenter of the chaos.

"Okay, now, hold on. I know it looks bad, but there's a reason for all of this, you know? The plan was-"

The black hound's maw yawned open, and Yukari's eyes bugged out as a series of flickering lights came from within that ragged shadow.

"Wait, wait, WAIT!"

The lights seemed to coalesce and then collapse within the hellhound's mouth, starting a catastrophic reaction unseen outside of the death throes of a star.

'At least I died doing what I loved,' Yukari thought sadly, the rattling detonations all around the field seeming to fade into the background as light flooded her field of vision, 'making fun of idiots. Goodbye, Moka. Farewell, Senpai.'

And then, suddenly, the young witch was airborne.

A shrieking howl blew Tsukune off his feet as a vast beam of pure white lanced out of Kouma's jaws, and he was forced again to avert and cover his eyes from the glare to avoid being completely blinded from the light.

The otherworldly shriek leveled off into low rumble that had Tsukune's teeth rattling in his jaws, and he felt a wave of thin, hot ash blow across his arms as he covered himself as best he could from the devastation. After a few seconds, once the flare of light that had been burned into his retinas had faded into darkness and the occasional explosion from a dying hanabake was the loudest noise pounding in his ears, he cracked his eyes open again.

A long trench of scorched Earth, wider than most roads, had been torn through the ground, and the surrounding soil had been dusted with the remains of the sunflowers and sunflower-disguised creatures that had been too close to the heat. Besides the new scar decorating the face of Witch's Knoll for almost a kilometer, the upturned grounds of the sunflower field were now pockmarked with scorched craters and small fires from the hanabake exploding from underground, and several of the bodies still burned as the lava seams that had triggered them cooled rapidly.

The pyre that had surrounded Kouma had now been replaced by smoke, though Tsukune could still make out the glittering red of the hound's eyes through the billowing darkness.

"That... That was close," Yukari squeaked as she clung to Kana's torso, her illusion of Ranma's body flickering away.

The siren flapped her wings hard to stay airborne, struggling with the added weight. Although Yukari was small, the young witch didn't weigh much more than Kana did herself, and the siren was ill-suited to bearing cargo.

"Why did you drop the illusion?" Kana complained with a pout, "I rather liked pretending I was rescuing Ranma."

"It's hard to concentrate on a spell when your life is flashing before your eyes!" Yukari countered.

"Don't think I'm done with you yet," rumbled a heavy, hateful voice that immediately caused both girls to flinch. Down on the ground, Kouma stepped out of the smoke column, black trails of toxic vapors wafting from his jaws as his eyes glowed a pure, brilliant crimson. "I'll roast your pet songbird along with you if I must, Saotome."

The hellhound glanced up, droplets of lava oozing out of the corner of his mouth like drool. "Sorry, I meant Sendo."

Kouma continued staring up at the two girls.

"Wait. I'm confused," the hellhound admitted, the glow in his eyes starting to dim.

"KOUMA!" Tsukune shouted yet again.

"WHAT?!" Kouma roared, turning to face the young human with his teeth bared. Despite the awesome power he had just released, his indignant rage was not yet spent, and he wasn't particular at this point about who suffered his fury.

Tsukune grimaced and pointed to his neck. "Your collar's gone. It burned up."

Kouma did not respond, though the red glow of his eyes went out.

For the most part, silence suddenly dominated the field, with the only exceptions being the crackling fires, the sound of a book's pages rustling as someone leafed through them desperately, and an elderly voice muttering "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap..."

Tsukune coughed into his fist, and then adopted his best attempt at a stern expression. "Now, I know that you're likely very upset at what just happened, and you have every right to be. But rather than immediately attempting revenge, I'd like you to consider forgiveness and-"

"BURN THE WITCH!" Kouma snarled, whirling around as his eyes locked onto Oyakata.

"-and I guess that was a little too much to hope for," Tsukune sighed.

_Fwoosh!_ In a burst of flame Kouma restored his human form, and then the hellhound bolted forward, fists ablaze.

"Not so fast!" Oyakata snarled, holding up the Book of Fur and Talon with its pages open toward the enraged canine, "don't take another step, hound, or you'll find yourself back in the tome!"

Kouma skidded to a stop, and the crone's cheek twitched toward a smile. "Did you think you would be safe by taking human form? The book knows your nature, dog, and it... will... what?"

The elder witch's words became confused as her spell book lifted from her hands, floating lazily through the air as its binding flapped like wings. So absurd was the sight that Oyakata didn't even think to try and stop it until it was too late, the tome pulling itself out of lunging range just as she jumped after it.

As the crone stared in disbelief, her book flapped its way over to one of the trees that flanked Oyakata's home, and into the hand of one of the girls that sat in the tree's branches.

Yukari twirled her wand with a flourish, and the Book of Fur and Talon shut itself before landing neatly in her hand, spine-first. Then she tucked it under her arm and silently stared down at the older witch with renewed interest in the current conflict.

Oyakata slowly turned to face Kouma once again, her expression curiously thoughtful as she scratched her chin.

"Upon reflection, perhaps murder IS somewhat harsh a retaliation for a mere... misunderstanding. Yes," she said with a slow nod, "I think I'll surrender now."

"Heh heh heh," Kouma chuckled darkly as he started shambling forward again, a discomfiting grin on his face, "surrender. Heh heh heh."

"Human!" Oyakata shouted as she started to back away, "are you going to let it end like this? Where are your so-called higher morals now?"

Tsukune frowned. "Kouma, I-"

"Shut up," the hellhound deadpanned as he kept stalking forward.

Tsukune shrugged helplessly as the elder witch quailed.

"Please stop!" Ruby, who had up until then watched the twisted combat from the sidelines, leapt in front of Kouma, spreading her arms out to either side, "I know what she's done is horrible, but my lady has-"

Kouma grabbed Ruby by the shoulder mid-sentence and flung her to the side like a piece of trash, not even breaking stride.

"You'll regret standing with the humans!" Oyakata cried as she broke into a full run away from the field, desperation and fear lending new strength to her old bones, "this will not end here!"

"I'm going to beat you. Then, I'm going to roast you. Low and slow. Just like a steak," Kouma said with an unnerving level of glee as he sped up to keep pace with the crone.

Within seconds, both Oyakata and Kouma were out of sight, having disappeared past the as yet unharmed edge of the sunflower field.

"Tsukune? Are you... okay with this?" Moka asked awkwardly as she approached him with Kurumu trailing behind her, "I mean, hunting down and killing Oyakata after she gave up?"

Tsukune stepped over to where Ruby was staggering to her feet, and offered his hand to help her up. "Am I okay with it? No, not really. Am I going to step in front of Kouma to try and stop him for Oyakata's sake? No. I'm not doing that," he glanced at the scorched furrow that had been blasted into the Earth.

Ruby gratefully accepted his hand and pulled herself up. "I know she deserves this, that she brought it on herself," she said sadly, "I can't even say that I don't deserve the same. But I still wish I could save her."

"Yeah, that's a real shame," Kurumu said flippantly as she cracked her neck. She had a few shallow wounds on her flank and wings and was sweating heavily as she staggered up to the Committee's captain, "anyway, can we finish up here? Kouma's blast sent Mizore into some sort of heat shock, Chopper's started eating the wounded hanabake, and my hair is a WRECK."

"Right, okay. Take Yukari and Moka and search the witch's home for that curse cure," Tsukune said, "I'll go check on Mizore."

"Got it!"

* * *

"Last stop," Ranma mumbled to himself as he jogged along the fence that ran adjacent to the canal.

In front of him stood the Cat Cafe, looking exactly as it had when Ranma had seen it last.

He was actually somewhat surprised that he hadn't run into Shampoo at random, since she had a talent for running him down when he was out and about. Then again, she didn't know he was back in town.

The way he figured it, the Amazons were probably the most likely candidates to be monsters besides Happousai; they were strange, curiously long-lived, had their own isolated village with a set of laws that involved way too much combat, and they shared a mountain range with a kingdom of misogynistic hybrid freaks and bird people.

To that end, he wasn't really sure he WANTED to question them on their species. What if they had some kind of rule concerning people who discovered their true form? Or what if they were a tribe of sex-starved demons or something? He'd had more than enough of those at school.

"Well, well, this is a surprise," croaked an elderly voice from below, causing the pigtailed boy to flinch, "hello, Son-in-law. I didn't expect to see you loitering outside my store. Have you come here to take out Shampoo or just eat lunch?"

Ranma glanced down at Cologne, who was balanced atop her staff on the sidewalk below him. "None of the above, really. Just wanted to stop by and let you know what happened to me."

"Ah, yes, you were taken to another school, weren't you?" Cologne mused as Ranma dropped down in front of her, "and such a mysterious school it was, that I've been unable to find a single trace of it outside that flier your mother keeps. Almost as if it were the cover for some sort of hastily constructed attempt to escape from Nerima without being pursued."

Ranma shrugged. "Or the school is a secret facility in another dimension run by a crazy wizard."

"That was my second guess," Cologne admitted, "anyone I know?"

"No clue. Don't know the loon's name, or if he even has one," Ranma said, rubbing the back of his head, "but anyway, I wanted to say hi and let you know that I'll be coming back in the winter, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't smash apart time and space to hunt me down in the meantime."

"Fine, go ahead and spoil my entire autumn holiday," Cologne said half-jokingly.

"Also, I know this might seem like a weird question, but are the Amazons monsters?" Ranma asked.

Evidently Cologne lacked a witty reply this time, as she just blinked owlishly at the pigtailed boy. "Pardon?"

"Are the Amazons humans?" Ranma asked, "or are you some kind of secret village of mutants or something?"

Cologne tilted her head slightly to one side, but appeared not to take offense at the question, at least. "We're... human, yes. Why would you ask this?"

"You, uh... You hesitated for a minute, there," Ranma pointed out.

"I'm simply wondering what sort of people you imagine us to be," Cologne said, bouncing around Ranma in a circle.

"Well, I don't know. That's why I'm asking," Ranma explained, "I mean, I won't hold it against you and Shampoo if you turn out to be were-beasts or something, but I'd like to know."

Cologne finished a circuit around Ranma, and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk as she stared at the pigtailed boy with a discerning eye. "Hmmm... Well, since you asked, I will say that the village has some bloodlines that are not... 'pure' human. We live in a region that boasts many strange and powerful tribes, after all, and our people value strength above species. There are even legends that suggest that all of the village may share ancestry with supernatural beings."

Cologne smirked as Ranma tensed. "But I can assure you, Shampoo and I are quite human. We have no alternative forms or strange biology."

"I think your 'biology' is plenty strange," Ranma quipped, idly glancing toward the street.

Cologne chuckled, although the sound was drowned out by the roar of a rapidly accelerating engine. "May I ask what prompted this question, Son-in-law? Unlike you to show an interest in our people."

Ranma plucked Cologne's staff off the ground, holding it, and her, above his head just as a speeding black SUV zoomed past with two wheels on the sidewalk, coming mere centimeters from brushing Ranma's chest.

_SCREEEECH! Crunch!_

Ranma clicked his tongue as he put Cologne's staff back onto the sidewalk. "You must be losing your touch, old ghoul. That car almost pasted you. Now the reason I-"

_Clunk!_ Ranma was fairly stunned as Cologne actually fell over, failing to balance atop her staff and landing haphazardly on the edge of the sidewalk.

"Eh? Hey ghoul, you all right?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow. The old Amazon wasn't unconscious or anything, but seemed completely stunned, and was even trembling slightly as her eyes bugged out.

Ranma glanced back at the vehicle that had almost hit her, and saw that it had impacted a utility pole, partially caving in the front of the hood. Deciding that Cologne just needed a moment to get over her brush with death (although Ranma couldn't fathom why she seemed paralyzed at the prospect), he started to approach the SUV to check if the driver needed help.

"Yo! Are you tryin' to kill someone?" he shouted, cupping a hand next to his mouth, "hello? You alive?"

Suddenly the driver's-side door burst open, and an unfamiliar foreign man wearing a flat cap emerged.

"As a matter of fact, I am! Slay the witch!" he shouted with a snarl, looking none the worse for wear despite his recent collision. Then he aimed a large crossbow in Ranma's direction and let loose a bolt.

_Thwip!_ Ranma plucked the projectile out of the air, noting that the shot had gone wide.

"Hey, calm down. I'm no witch," he insisted.

"Yes, I know," George Byron said gruffly as he took more careful aim at the old woman balancing on a staff.

_Thwip!_ Ranma again caught the crossbow bolt, despite the fact that this time he knew it wasn't aimed at him. He kept his gaze on the new arrival, though, and as such missed it when Cologne flinched back from the shot that never reached her.

"She isn't a witch either!" Ranma complained, starting to get a little annoyed.

"That she is, lad," George said, stopping to spit into the street next to him, "now back off so I can slay the wench!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head. "No, she isn't!"

The foreigner rolled his eyes. "And you think yourself an authority on witches?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah! I do think I'd know a witch when I saw one!" the pigtailed boy snapped, jabbing a thumb to his chest, "besides, the old ghoul could wipe you out in a heartbeat, man. Cut your losses and call a tow truck or something."

George raised an eyebrow behind the sights of his crossbow. "For a creature of such power, she seems bloody quick to flee."

"You think a Chinese Amazon is afraid of some chubby weirdo from the States?" Ranma scoffed, glancing behind him.

He couldn't help but notice, as he did so, that there was a head of long gray hair whipping about in the distance, about five or six buildings away and moving fast to escape the confrontation in front of the Cat Cafe.

"It would seem the fell wench is indeed," George grumbled as he let his aim drop, "and by the by, I'm English, not American."

"What's the difference?" Ranma asked, honestly bewildered by Cologne's flight and wondering how he should react.

"Our honour, our artefacts, and our pyjamas," the witch hunter quipped, "can I get back to my job, now? I'd like to be rid of the foul creature before supper."

"No," Ranma started walking up to the armed man, "what'd she do to you, anyway?"

George sighed, irritated at the hold-up but not willing to try to fight the boy. Not yet, anyway. "I am a witch hunter, lad. And despite your protests, that wretched creature was undoubtedly a witch. I'm sure that she's been involved in all sorts of dreadful exploits, spreading misery wherever she goes!"

Ranma scoffed. "That not tr-wait, no, that is true," he corrected, looking slightly worried, "but even so, I'm not gonna let you kill her just 'cause you think she's a witch."

"Those who stand with the witches will die with the witches!" shouted another voice as a dark shape jumped out of the SUV and onto the pavement.

James the shadow cat glared at this latest obstacle standing between George and his prey. "What are you thinking, standing up for these degenerate... wow, he runs fast."

George frowned at the dust cloud that marked the rapidly departing teenager, unsure of what to make of him. Certainly there had been people who have attempted to defend the witches before, but such actions had always been attempted out of ignorance for what they were defending. Though the pigtailed boy claimed the crone wasn't a witch, he seemed to know about them and wasn't fazed.

"James, keep to the alleys and wait for my signal. He seemed startled by your appearance somehow, so be ready to ambush the fool on my signal."

"Aye-aye, boss!" the magic beast said, dashing for the space between buildings and leaving a trail of inky darkness behind him.

"The hunt begins anew..."

* * *

Cologne bounced along the rooftops, her eyes sweeping from side to side with uncommon desperation as she sought to put more distance between her and the foreign man that had just tried to run her over.

No, not just tried, she amended silently, almost succeeding.

It seemed she owed Ranma Saotome a personal debt now, since she was quite sure she would be dead if he hadn't casually intervened. More than once, in fact; those crossbow shots had been aimed perfectly, and it was only good fortune that she had someone around who was willing and able to stop them.

"Hey, ghoul! Wait up!" shouted said savior, landing on the roof next to her as the ancient Amazon paused in her flight.

Ranma was gasping for breath, planting his hands on his knees as he glared at Cologne. "What's the deal, ghoul? Why'd you bolt like that?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you noticed son-in-law, but there was an armed gentleman trying to kill me," Cologne drawled, "could you be a dear and drive him off? I need to find Shampoo."

"Nuh-uh! I'm not getting near that guy! He has a demon cat for a pet!" Ranma claimed, shuddering in terror, "it breathes darkness and speaks like a man! I'm not messing with that!"

Cologne sighed as she bounced away to the next roof. "Retreat it is, then."

"Wait! Hold on!" Ranma leapt after her, his breathing under control again, "why's that guy after you? He thinks you're a witch!"

"It's... complicated," Cologne said uneasily. "Strictly speaking, I AM a witch," the elder Amazon admitted.

Ranma almost tripped on a piece of tile, but caught himself before rounding on Cologne angrily. "Hey! You said you were a human!"

"Witches are human, son in law."

"That's not what my anti-devil hunter teacher said!"

Cologne sweatdropped. "Well, putting aside your... unorthodox lesson plan, the Chinese Amazons do not view witchcraft as many others do. To us it is a talent, a gift possessed by a small fraction of the tribe who will become our greatest warriors and shamans. It does not separate us from our sister Amazons, and in fact-"

"Hold it!" Ranma said suddenly, reaching out and grabbing Cologne's staff before she could make the leap to the next building, "does this mean that all those times you kicked my ass, you were just using magic?"

The elder Amazon gave him an exasperated look. "Must we discuss this NOW?"

"Tell me! Are you even a martial artist?" Ranma demanded, folding his arms over his chest.

"It's complicated," Cologne said again, shaking her head, "a gifted Amazon goes through the same training as any other warrior. We must become fighters of peerless quality before we're allowed to indulge our gifts for the arcane."

Cologne raised one arm, letting her massive sleeve fall to expose a single withered hand. "I taught you and that idiot that's always gnashing at your heels various techniques, didn't I? They were no parlor tricks." She hesitated as she stared at her tiny, wrinkled fingers. "On the other hand, were it not for magic, I wouldn't be able to use any of them in the state I'm in."

"How's that?"

"Happousai staves off the ravages of age with the sheer strength of his aura, using it to reinforce his bones, protect his flesh, and empower his movements. It's a remarkable trick, and I wish I understood better how he managed it," Cologne admitted reluctantly, "I, on the other hand, make do with an elixir I brew myself to keep my body strong enough to fight. You didn't think I got to be over three hundred years old with good diet and exercise, did you?"

"Okay, fine... So what about Shampoo? Is she a witch too?" Ranma asked, scratching his chin.

"Like I told you, the matter is more complicated than that. It's expected she has the gift, yes, but it will be decades before she's trained and makes her pact."

"Pact? What do you mean by that?" Ranma asked, intrigued.

"Can this wait, son-in-law?" Cologne asked with a groan.

_Thwap!_ As if to underline her point, another crossbow bolt zipped toward her from behind, forcing Ranma to lean over and slap it out of the air.

Cologne immediately hopped away into a full retreat again, and Ranma followed after her, grimacing.

"Fine, can you at least tell me why you suddenly can't dodge anymore?" he demanded, "it's not like you to back down so easily."

Cologne didn't say anything for a short while as they leapt from roof to roof, hoping to leave the Englishman in the dust far behind them.

"It's-"

"Complicated, yeah, I get it. Tell me anyway," Ranma snapped.

Cologne was slightly taken aback by the assertiveness, but was still reluctant to explain herself. None of the things she had just told Ranma were particularly secret, although she had avoided spreading knowledge of her power anyway to avoid any chance of being targeted by vigilantes (an effort that had eventually failed, it would seem). To explain why she was unable to avoid the weapons of the hunter, though, would require indulging information that could very easily be used against her.

"Hey, are you listening to me?" Ranma asked, a vein popping up on his head, "c'mon ghoul, I've already saved your life, you can at least tell me why I had to bother!"

Cologne sighed as she vaulted off a roof and then landed on a fence next to a canal, making short hops along the top of it. "My fighting techniques may come from my martial arts training, but much of my agility does not, son-in-law. I have a spell in place to grant me limited precognition, enabling me to see threats before they actually reach me and check my opponent's position a moment before they reach it."

Ranma's eyes bugged out. "You can see the future?"

"Just enough to make your life difficult," Cologne said with a dry chuckle, "that man is somehow invisible to my divination, though. I can't see his movements ahead of time, nor his weapons. Having to adjust so suddenly to using my mundane defenses is... disorienting."

"So you can't even dodge a crossbow without your magic, huh," Ranma said, shaking his head, "well, whatever. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to find Shampoo. I may be vulnerable to that man, but she should be more than a match for him."

Ranma snorted. "Guess all that Amazon pride goes right out the window when things get serious, huh?"

"An assassination attempt is different from a duel, son-in-law," the elder said, giving Ranma a scathing look, "I see no reason why I should have to fight for my right to live."

"You're preaching to the choir, lady," Ranma retorted, hopping off the fence, "anyway, I'll see if I can slow him down. If the cat is still with him you're on your own, though."

"Who was it who was quick to discard pride?" Cologne mumbled, "but fine. I doubt the hunter could catch me even without your assistance; it's clear he doesn't do much running."

Without further comment the elder Amazon leapt away, continuing her flight in the direction of Shampoo's last delivery.

* * *

Atop a nearby flat-topped building, George Byron looked down the scope of his 7.62mm L96 rifle as it rested on a softly humming air conditioning unit, his breathing slow as the cross hairs delicately followed the decrepit magic user bouncing across the distant rooftops.

He'd never liked using the rifle, partly because of the legal restrictions concerning guns in Japan, but mostly because he had much less practice with it than with older weapons. When you practiced firing a crossbow in your back yard, people assumed you were a hobbyist. When you practiced long-range sharp-shooting, people started to wonder what the interior of your vehicle looked like.

'Quick little bugger, aren't you?' he thought as his sights followed the witch's path across the district's homes, keeping careful track of the wind speed and ballistic drop calculations in the back of his mind, 'settle down a moment, crone. Just a moment...'

As if the Chinese witch had been listening to his thoughts, she jumped up to the top of an apartment complex, standing atop her staff as she scanned the streets below.

"Gotcha," George breathed as the cross hairs settled above the stationary woman, adjusting for the necessary variables that could spoil the shot.

"Oi, quit that," Ranma said as he pulled the rifle barrel down.

George was almost startled enough to squeeze the trigger, but resisted the reflex as he jerked his head back and snatched his weapon to his chest.

"You again. What IS your bloody problem?" George growled as he switched on the safety and unloaded the rifle.

"My problem is that you're trying to kill people. I want you to stop that," Ranma said as he watched the witch hunter place the unloaded rifle down next to the AC unit. Usually Ranma would have let his fists do the talking by now, but he was actually kind of impressed, both by the way the foreigner had actually spooked Cologne and by the fact that the hunter hadn't made any move to attack him. Usually the people he was trying to stop were far more indiscriminate than that, and he appreciated such a professional approach.

George got up from his weapon, content that it was safely stowed away such that he could retrieve it later. "Listen to me lad, what does the witch have on ya? With my magesight I can see you're cursed; did she do that to you?"

"That wasn't her fault," Ranma said, shaking his head, "well... At least I don't THINK it was her fault."

Actually, now that he considered it, the Amazons being a secret tribe of witches went an awful long way toward explaining why the entire mountain range they inhabited was lousy with monsters and magic. How did he know that they didn't secretly create Jusenkyou themselves?

'Better not go there,' Ranma decided, 'I might be tempted to let this guy do his job.'

"So you stand with the witch as a matter of principle, then?" George asked, clearly perplexed, "these creatures use humans as their tools. They are schemers and hateful pranksters, who know nothing of human compassion and have no respect for our laws."

"That is all TOTALLY true," Ranma agreed, his thoughts flashing back to all the schemes Cologne had involved him in and other trouble she'd caused, "but the ghoul can be helpful too, and I don't remember her doing anything that she should be killed for. So why don't you show a little human compassion and buzz off?"

"I see then. You will not be swayed," George mumbled, lifting his cap with one hand and scratching his hair with the other, "it's unfortunate. I've never had to harm a human before in pursuit of a witch."

It was only that line that put Ranma on guard far enough to defend himself. Otherwise, the speed at which George flung the nail that was hidden in his hat would have surprised him too much to react.

As it was, Ranma clapped his hands shut on the length of the nail, stopping it just centimeters before it pierced his shoulder. Before he could do much more than look surprised, George struck a palm at the head of the nail, aiming to force it past Ranma's defense.

Ranma twisted his body quickly enough so that the nail barely grazed the top of his shoulder rather than punching through it, and then shifted to the offensive.

"You're fast for a heavy guy," Ranma admitted as he stepped into the Englishman's defenses, testing him with a few darting jabs to the chest and stomach. Every one of them struck home as George struggled to keep up with the pigtailed boy, and he tried in vain to back away to get some space.

Ranma saw the hunter's hand slipping into his coat, and he struck the man's forearm to halt it briefly before he hit it with a snap kick, sending George's hand flailing as the knife he was drawing flew into the air.

George sucked in a harsh breath and leapt backward from the roof and onto an awning, then hopped off of that and onto a small car's hood before he started to parkour down the street.

"All offense, no defense, typical assassin type," Ranma mumbled to himself as he dashed across the rooftop alongside the retreating Briton, "his style seems pretty conventional, probably military? Not really a challenge."

Still, the witch hunter had managed to surprise him, and he doubted someone who killed witches for a living didn't have more tricks up his sleeve. Also, there was the man's... trump card.

Ranma shuddered, wondering where the Briton had left his talking cat.

Increasing his sprinting speed, Ranma soon ended up ahead of George, and leapt out in front of him, alighting on top of the cab of a pickup truck.

"Yo, slow down already," Ranma said as George landed unsteadily in the bed of the pickup, halting himself, "you're not gonna get away, so you might as well fight me or just give-is that a flamethrower?"

_HWOOSH!_ Ranma dove into the street as a jet of fire swept over the truck, scorching the vehicle's paint across its cab.

Ranma rolled as he hit the ground, then jumped up onto a nearby lamp post. "Seriously? You go from knives to flamethrower?"

George hefted the two-handed flamer with a grim determination as he kept his eyes locked onto the pigtailed boy. It looked to be home-made, with a collection of mismatched pipes and tubes connecting a small jug of fuel mounted under the weapon to a metal bullhorn shell at the end of it.

"The witch must burn, lad!" George shouted, heedless of the fact that there were several civilians around them now to watch the conflict, "turn around and bugger off!"

"Yeah, no," Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "you're not getting past me, so why don't YOU give up?"

"You know nothing of the evils of the witch!" George growled, hopping out of the truck bed with his flamer aimed forward.

"I know lots about the evils of the witch! Hell, after all the evils I've been hit with, I consider myself a freakin' expert!" Ranma shot back, jabbing a thumb at himself, "and I'm telling you to back off anyway!"

"I cannot! I will not let a witch escape destruction again! I will not let more people suffer their corrupt rituals!" George snapped, raising the weapon at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma snorted, unconcerned. "So, what, you're gonna burn me up and then chase down granny? You think you can beat me with that glorified cigarette lighter?"

"No, lad," George said sadly, "I'll probably need Jame's help for that."

"Who's James?" Ranma asked, a heavy feeling settling in his gut as he felt something brush against his leg from behind.

Glancing down at his feet, he saw the black cat from before rubbing its side against his shin, it's mouth curled into a toothy grin as unnaturally crimson eyes stared upward at him.

"Pur," the cat said flatly, without any of the warmth usually attached to such an act.

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" George and James watched in mild amusement as the teenage martial artist bolted backward, striking the hood of a car and then tumbling over it haphazardly before spilling out onto the street.

"Awwww, what's da matter? Is da big bad human scared of widdle ol' me?" James mocked as he bounded up onto the car hood, smiling down at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma screamed something unintelligible as he scrambled away on his hands and knees, moving directly away from the cat and heedless of the far more dangerous witch hunter in the other direction.

_Whomp!_ George planted a heavy boot on Ranma's back, stopping the boy dead.

Ranma, who was practically hyperventilating by now, stared up pleadingly at the Englishman. At some point the witch hunter had put away the flamethrower, and his now held a combat knife in each hand.

"L-Lemme go you psycho! You attack witches but hang out with freaking demon cats!" Ranma shouted, trying to push himself up despite the man's weight. Under normal circumstances he could have flung the foreigner away without difficulty, but being in such close proximity to a cat had reduced his arms and legs to jelly.

James bristled. "I'm a MAGIC CAT, dumbass! Don't call me a demon! That's racist!"

"I don't care! Just get it away!" Ranma cried, kicking his feet and beating ineffectually on the ground.

"Well I DO care! Do you know what some of us have to go through because jerks like you put demon cats and magic cats in the same category?" James hissed, "don't assume that just because I'm a semi-corporeal shadow beast that I'm abyssal!"

"James, I really don't think this is the time or place for this conversation," George said, pointing a knife down at Ranma's throat, "so I was right. You're an honest-to-God ailuraphobe. Now see here, lad: if you promise to leave me be to go about my work now and in the future, then James here will back off and I'll let you go. And then, of course, the witch will die."

Ranma growled as he clawed at the ground, trying not to look behind him at the small black horror sitting on the hood of a car.

"If you refuse, then, well... even then I'd rather not have to kill you, so I suppose instead I'll cut your legs so that they never heal right. And then I'll get back to killing the witches anyway, but I suppose you could always try to limp in my way if you really wanted to," the Englishman mused, pointing a knife down at the teenager, "your call, lad. I really am sorry that it's come to this."

Despite every instinct calling on him to submit to the foreigner just to get away from the cat, Ranma choked on the words threatening to admit surrender. Was he really going to go down like this, to some foreign chump who just happened to have Ranma's greatest fear tucked away in his wrecked SUV? A man with barely half of his combat skill and experience who assassinated unsuspecting magic-users in his spare time? There had to be something he could do!

'The cat!' Ranma thought, his eyes locking onto James and a cold dread flowing through his entire body, 'maybe... if I were to fall into the Neko-ken...' it was beyond a desperate plan, but at the moment he still considered it a degree more reasonable than surrendering.

"Speak already, you stubborn git!" George snapped, twirling one knife in his hand, "I'm not much for torturing kids, and every second I spend on YOU is one less second I have to take down the crone!"

Ranma said nothing, forcing his eyes to stay locked onto the slitted pupils of the feline staring down at him with contempt. 'GOD! How did they manage to come up with a cat even more cruel and horrible than the regular ones!' he demanded as he started to feel dizzy.

"Fine then," George said grimly, leaning down as his eyes narrowed, "I'll make sure you get to a good-eh?"

The Englishman blinked as a trash can lid sailed by him like a frisbee, curving in a neat arc to bring it straight into James' surprised and horrified face.

_Clang!_ "MEOWCH!" The magical beast went flying from the blow, spiralling through the air at an impressive arc that sent it straight over the fence of a nearby house and dropping it out of sight.

"What in the bloody hell..." George slowly turned to look behind him, noting that several interested onlookers were now clearing out of the area.

The reason why was quite obvious: a single teenage girl standing atop an awning on the other side of the street. She was a foreigner as well, Chinese if her clothes and jewelry were any indication, and had a curvy build that didn't interest him nearly as much as the pair of basketball-sized iron maces that were both clenched in one hand. She also looked supremely annoyed.

"Now what?" George grumbled, tightening his grip on his knives.

"You there. Hat Man. What you think you doing?" Shampoo said irritably, a vein pulsing on her head as she planted her free hand on her hip.

"I'm TRYING to do my bloody JOB!" George complained, pointing a knife at the Amazon, "but you damn kids keep getting in my way! Bugger off!"

"You have something what belong to Shampoo," she deadpanned, pointing to the body under the witch hunter's foot.

"What? The lad? He's in a spot of trouble with me, actually," George grumbled, "why? You here to rescue the little wanker?"

Shampoo snorted as she tried to hold in laughter, her annoyed expression washing away in a tide of amusement. "Rescue? Ranma not need be rescue by Shampoo!"

George couldn't help but snort in amusement himself. "Really? Well you should probably tell him that, because..." he trailed off as he felt a hand grab onto his ankle.

Looking down the witch hunter was extremely disturbed to see that the boy he was stepping on was encompassed by a fiery blue glow, and was no longer quivering in terror like before.

"Ah. Right. Cat's gone," George mumbled, his expression darkening.

"Cat's gone," Ranma repeated.

"Well... bugger me," the Englishman said grimly.

George had been duly impressed before, when Ranma had snapped up his crossbow bolts like they were paper airplanes, and even more so when the boy had totally outclassed him in close combat. Once Ranma got serious, however, things happened too quickly for him to appreciate.

The world spun as he was up-ended, his weight completely inadequate to keep Ranma pinned without the weakening effect of undiluted terror. Multiple strikes impacted his arms and torso as the world spun around him wildly, and then George's back hit the asphalt, sending a painful shock throughout his carefully abused body.

_Clink! Tink!_ His knives bounced onto the sidewalk a few meters away. It took a few moments for George to recognize this, because he wasn't aware he had let go of them. His entire body seemed to be going numb, and he had just realized by then that he had lost all motor control of his arms and legs.

Ranma sighed as he stood up straight, cracking his back. "Damn, that was a lot more trouble than I thought it would be. Stupid talking evil cats."

"Airen! You okay!" squealed Shampoo, leaping down on the pigtailed boy with her arms spread wide.

"Gugh!" Ranma grunted as he was forcibly embraced, but made no attempt to ward off the Amazon. It was the least he could do for the rescue, he supposed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for getting rid of the furball, Shampoo."

"Is no problem! Just happy see airen again!" Shampoo purred, "Ranma disappear and mother no tell where you go! But Shampoo know you come back!"

"Yeah, well, here I am," Ranma mumbled as he started to disentangle himself from the Chinese girl, "I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing fine in my new school and that it's in another dimension or something so you shouldn't try and track me down while I'm gone."

Shampoo frowned and stepped back. "Why you go school in new dimension? What wrong with this one?"

"Because it's fully of lunatics, for one," Ranma grumbled, giving the downed Briton a light kick in the arm, "whatever. What's the ghoul planning on doing with this guy?"

Shampoo blinked, perplexed. "Great-grandmother? Why she have plan for Hat Man?"

"Didn't she send you over here?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Shampoo not see Great Grandmother since leave for delivery," the teenage Amazon said, tapping her chin, "stop to fend off panty-stealing man, who tell Shampoo that airen come back! Shampoo search for you right away!"

"You don't say," the pigtailed boy mumbled, scratching the back of his head, "well, she was looking for you earlier when I ran into her. You should probably go find out what she wants, it seemed important."

"Aiyah! Great-grandmother have worst timing!" Shampoo pouted, turning away, "you stay here until Shampoo come back, yes?"

"No, that's not happening," Ranma deadpanned, waving to the Amazon, "I'll see you some other time, Shampoo. Thanks again for getting rid of the furball."

Shampoo sighed but took off down the street, leaving Ranma alone with the paralyzed foreigner in the middle of street.

"So, what to do with you," Ranma said as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I'd rather not let the ghoul kill you, or whatever she might do. Isn't there some place I can drop you off where they can deport you?"

"I'm a legal resident and citizen of Japan," George noted.

"Yeah, well, you just tried to kill someone," Ranma pointed out.

"Is that even a crime in this district?"

Ranma was silent for several seconds, considering all the times that someone had tried to murder him with absolutely no legal or social repurcussions.

"You know, I almost wish the people here HAD turned out to be monsters," the pigtailed man grumbled, massaging his forehead, "it would have made sense. A lot of sense. Instead, it turns out they're all people who are just as crazy and dangerous as monsters."

"Not all of 'em. Some of them are witches," George pointed out.

"Witches are people too!" Ranma insisted.

"Bullshite," the witch hunter snapped, "they've pulled the wool over your eyes, lad."

"No they haven't," Ranma said evenly, staring down at the foreigner, "believe me, they haven't managed to hide how much of a pain in the ass they are. Not a bit."

"You keep saying that you understand the evils of the witch, yet you refuse to let them be punished for their wicked ways," George grumbled as he shifted slightly on the ground, "so you realize the danger they cause but you still protect them because you happen to know them personally. You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Ranma blinked. "What else would I do with cake?"

"No. No, it's an expression that means you can't-" the Briton halted as his head rolled to the side, his eyes looking at something beyond Ranma's feet, "oh, James, you're back."

George winced as Ranma promptly ran over him, heedless of the man's helpless body as he dashed down the street in a panic, flailing his arms wildly.

The Englishman waited for a good minute before he started to push himself up, straining his body against the temporary paralysis of Ranma's earlier attacks. James wasn't anywhere near here, of course, as he imagined that the shadow cat would find moving difficult at best after taking such a brutal hit. George would probably have to collect his sidekick personally, along with his rifle. The SUV would probably have been towed by the time he finished, and anyway that would be the most obvious location for the witch to set a trap for him.

"Blimey, this a rough town. Maybe I should stick to the inner-city witches from now on," George said under his breath as he got to his feet, staggering off of the street and finally allowing the free flow of traffic through the road. There had actually been almost a dozen cars patiently waiting for the blockage to clear; such was the frequency of martial arts duels disrupting traffic that the drivers didn't even bother using their horns, treating them with the same resigned sense of patience usually reserved for construction delays and schoolyard crossings.

"Bloody weirdoes..."

* * *

"Mizore? Mizore, are you all right?" Tsukune asked as he leaned over the snow fairy, one arm resting on his knee.

The girl was laying flat on the ground, her clothes dusted by ash and her face flush and feverish. She seemed to be breathing steadily, though, so Tsukune had to assume that she wasn't in any immediate danger.

"She's been like that since Gamaroshi went nuclear on us," Chopper grunted as he stepped up behind Tsukune, chewing noisily on some hanabake flesh as he held a dismembered (and partially eaten) leg in one hand, "was way too close to the beam, I guess."

Tsukune grimaced. His strategy had worked, ultimately; Kouma had been freed, Oyakata had been defeated, and the hanabake army had been destroyed, or at least reduced significantly. But that hadn't been his original plan, and he had to wonder about whether it had been wise to even attempt negotiation with Oyakata in the first place.

Was it naieve of him to expect that even a twisted, hateful witch like her could see reason? Did she really need to be stripped of most of her power and forced to stare down the burning gullet of a hellhound before she'd even consider whether she could be wrong?

Was fear and force really the only way to do the right thing?

"I wish Ranma were here," Tsukune lamented for what felt like the hundredth time. The older boy never had any hesitation, never seemed worried that he made the wrong choice, and always seemed to know exactly when it was time to stop talking and start punching. Tsukune didn't think that was always a good thing, necessarily, but he was acutely aware now of how much he depended on Ranma to take on the hard tasks and simplify the hard decisions through expedient force and the occasional tornado.

Tsukune tried gently shaking Mizore by her shoulders, but failed to get even a groan out of the girl as her head lolled to one side.

"Huhn. That lollipop of hers is gone," Tsukune noted, scratching the back of his head. Not that it seemed at all important to the situation, but it was such a regular feature of Mizore's face that it looked strange for her to be without it.

He stood up, and then waved to Chopper. "Can you bring her inside the witches' hut? It's probably cooler in there, and I don't think we should leave her exposed to the sun like this. Yukari's also in there, so maybe she might have an idea about how to help her."

"Gotcha, Boss," said the troll, stuffing the rest of the leg in his mouth before walking up to the snow woman and picking her up. His forearm alone was almost big enough to cradle Mizore on, and Chopper turned away to head toward the hillside dwelling.

Tsukune stayed behind, and the human boy sighed heavily as he looked around at the shredded plant matter, scorched dirt, and scattered ashes that lay across the field.

"They went so far to prevent this place from becoming a trash heap," he muttered, "so far that they nearly turned it into one all on their own. Hmph."

Tsukune snorted, blowing away a snowflake that had been floating down to close to his nose. "Well, it's over now. We can finally get back to our training camp and..."

He trailed off as another few snowflakes fell in front of him, one of them landing on his nose.

"Wait, that's not ash," Tsukune mumbled as he craned his neck to look up at the sky. Dark clouds high above were spreading and bulging outward with unnatural speed, and Tsukune could feel the winds starting to pick up as the volume of the sudden snowfall increased with frightening and suspicious speed.

"A blizzard? What's going on here?"

* * *

End Chapter 16

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

Genma hummed a rough tune to himself as he lumbered down the street, the cloth sack still slung over his furry shoulders.

"Are we there yet?"

There were pedestrians on the street, but they paid him no more than the occasional curious stare. A panda carrying a sack that shifted every once in a while was hardly worthy of alarm to the normal citizens of Nerima, so long as the panda wasn't crashing through walls or caving in car hoods.

"Are we there yet?"

Genma stopped and looked up as he reached his destination, which was the Nerima municipal garbage disposal facility. Behind the chain-link fence, a massive incinerator carried burnable trash into the heart of its blazing furnace via a long conveyor belt, and huge smokestacks belched smoke into the air as power generators attached to the back of the facility crackled and buzzed with fresh current.

"Are we there yet?"

Genma let out a low growl, then raised a sign with the worded face aimed backward. "Yes, we're here!"

"... I can't read your signs in the sack, you know," Richard said as the bag shifted again.

Genma flipped the sign around. "Then how did you know I'd raised a sign?"

"... Are we there yet?"

A vein popped up on the cursed panda's head, and he swung the sack over his shoulder and into the ground, striking hard enough to elicit new cracking noises from the warlock's much-abused body.

"So we're here, then?" asked Richard from within the bag, "smack twice more for yes, and toss me into oncoming traffic for no."

Genma was sorely tempted to do as the warlock wished, but decided it was better to just ignore the undead magus and get rid of him as soon as possible. Besides, there was just something... unsettling about participating in a comedy routine where the other actor kept prompting you to severely hurt him.

The cursed panda leapt over the fence, and started making his way through the veritable hills of heaped garbage that surrounded the main facility, waiting to be burnt.

As Genma reached the conveyor belt near the mouth of the incinerator he held up the sack holding Richard, preparing to throw him directly into the flames.

He hesitated however, his eyes darting about. Now that he thought about it, it was strange that there was nobody around running the facility. These were normal operating hours, as far as he was aware, and although Genma knew next to nothing about industrial incinerators, he had to imagine that it wasn't the kind of equipment to be left alone lightly.

As he was looking around, his eye happened to catch sight of a large piece of paper that had been laid on top of the mostly empty conveyor belt, passing him by on its way to fiery oblivion.

His curiosity piqued, he put Richard down and snatched the paper from the belt before it was carried out of arms' reach.

It appeared to be a blueprint of sorts, if blueprints were typically drawn up by elementary school kids based on Saturday morning cartoons. There was a scratchy picture of a panda in one corner before an arrow that pointed to a large banana peel. Another arrow pointed from the peel to a large spring that was stretched out and topped by a circular plate, and then an arrow stretched diagonally to a net. Another arrow went straight down from the net onto a drawing of a conveyor belt, which had an arrow stretched over it pointing to a fire. The entire thing was done in red crayon, and at the bottom was a hard-to-read note that said "Die stupid panda! Die!"

Genma considered the paper for a moment, and then glanced behind him.

A banana peel was laid on the ground next to a utility pole, just a meter or so from a large, circular metal plate that didn't seem completely out of place among the piles of trash and heavy machinery. Looking up, the cursed man could see that there was a large net stretched between two light posts mounted on either side of the conveyor belt.

"Are we there yet?"

The vein on Genma's head pulsed, and he tossed the sack containing the irritating warlock straight onto the plate.

_Sproing!_ the bag was launched through the air and into the middle of the net, which promptly broke free of its moorings and wrapped around the hapless victim of the trap before it dropped down onto the conveyor belt and began the slow crawl toward a fiery end.

"GAH! Damn it all!" A black-robed figure jumped out from behind a pile of trash, gripping a large, ornate scythe with a wooden handle in its skeletal hands. "That would have worked if I had just balled up the paper first! Stupid!"

A sweatdrop rolled down Genma's head as he held up a sign. "Sure it would have." Then he flipped the sign around. "Well, I have to go search the zoos for another decoy panda. Later."

"Wait! Stop!" Death shouted as he started dashing toward the cursed bear, "just let me kill you, already! You have no idea what you're doing to my annual employee revie-" as Death tried to run after the panda, his robe caught on the edge of a piece of wood that was sticking out, causing him to trip and fall over.

Genma shook his head as he walked to the fence and leapt over it again. Really, it was almost insulting how worthless Death was in his attempts to assassinate someone. Not that he WANTED Death to be more effective at hunting him down and dragging him to Hell, but the apparition did such a poor job of it that Genma worried about just how badly the afterlife was being run.

'Oh well. All the more reason to put off finding out,' he thought to himself as he lumbered down the street.

"Aw, man. This sucks," Death grumbled as he used his scythe to push himself off the ground, a dusty sigh coming from within the black, empty pit within his hood, "I've heard of cheating Death, but the jerk doesn't have to humiliate me, too!"

"Jim? Is that you?"

Death perked up as he heard a muffled voice coming from nearby, and he glanced over at the net-covered sack that was slowly moving toward the crackling flames of the incinerator.

"Wait... is that... Richard?" Death asked, walking over to the conveyor belt. He shoved the bag with the blunt end of his scythe, and the trapped warlock tumbled onto the ground on the other side.

"Jim! It's been centuries! How the Hell are ya, buddy?" Richard asked enthusiastically as the contours of the sack squirmed.

"How the Hell am I, huh? What a fitting way to phrase it," Death spat as he ducked under the belt and stood up on the other side.

"What's wrong, Jim? You sound bummed."

"Yeah. It's my job," Death said, putting his scythe down on the belt behind him before turning toward the entangled bag, "this career just isn't going where I thought it would."

"What do you do now, Jim?" Richard asked, the sack rolling slightly toward Death.

"I'm a shinigami. Death god. A genuine soul-harvesting badass, you know," Death said with a bitter chuckle, "what a joke. Lemme tell you Richard: whether mortal, god, or undead, it's all the same crap. The rules, the responsibilities, the bureaucracy... everything is about the big guy above - or below, in this case - telling you to get off your tailbone and do his dirty work for him."

"I know exactly what you mean," Richard said as he rolled slightly to the other side, "I'm a teacher now, right? Recently I've had these bunch of kids coming up to me at all hours of the day telling me - ME! - that I have to stop killing my students indiscriminately. Can you believe that? A bunch of kids telling their teacher to stop murdering their friends and peers! It's like nobody respects the arcane force to strip a man's flesh from his bones with two sentences anymore! No, now it's all: 'you're a teacher and you have to restrain yourself from dismembering your students to use their remains for teaching materials.' Blegh."

Death shook his hooded head, sitting down atop the wriggling sack with his bony arms crossed over his lap. "It's a different world now, that's for sure. Back in the day we never had mortals skipping out on damnation and needing to be hauled there by hand like a lost puppy. But that's all I spend my time doing now. At first I actually thought it would be nice to break up the monotony of dragging horrified souls to their resting places by hunting down a living person for once, but by ZEUS that Saotome Genma is a pain in the pelvis!"

"Heh, yeah. He sure got me good, didn't he?" Richard chuckled, "but seriously Jim, listen up: you can't judge your career by the scrape you're in now, you know?"

Death cocked his head to the side, staring down at his makeshift stool. "I can't?"

"No. Death is a serious business, and not the sort of thing you can leave to any halfwit with a farmer's tool and a Halloween costume. Look, I know you feel like another cog in the machine, but do you really think that the Lords of the Underworld can just leave hunting down a fugitive soul belonging to a SURPRISINGLY capable panda bear to just anyone?"

Death raised a skeletal finger to where his chin would be underneath his hood. "Well..."

"You got to where you are today through hard work, sweat, tears, and the untimely and likely very painful deaths of thousands of others who stood in your way! You might not be moving forward as fast as you like, but where you're at right now isn't so bad, is it?"

"Well, okay, yeah, that's true, but I just feel like I'll never advance sometimes, you know?" Death said.

"And you didn't feel that way three thousand years ago?" Richard said, squirming under the shinigami's weight, "remember back when you were mortal? Still trapped in that fleshy, repulsive sack of organs and hair awaiting your final descent into oblivion? You sure didn't feel like you were advancing then, did you?"

A dusty snort came from within Death's hood. "Well, shucks Rich, I have to give you that one. Maybe things aren't as bleak as I thought." He hopped to his feet, clenching the bleached bones of his fingers into wiry fists. "I mean, come on! I'm freaking DEATH! The human might always manage to run away in the end, but just why is he running? Because I'm coming for him! Because I'm waiting for him! Because I CANNOT BE STOPPED! I am the end, and there IS no escape! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Death cackled to himself as he thrust his arms into the air, and then settled his invisible gaze back on the squirming sack of warlock. "Thanks, Richard. That really cheered me up. I'm glad I ran into you again."

"And I'm glad you're in a better mood now," Richard said, "because I believe - though I can't be sure, as I'm still in this sack - that you put your scythe on the conveyor belt back when we started speaking, which would mean that it probably fell into the furnace like a minute ago."

"SON OF A BITCH!"


End file.
